Butterfly's Importance
by Moonlit Writer's Sin
Summary: Various factors decide the course of history, and in the case of Son Gohan, he and his peers were especially instrumental in the course of history. After killing Cell, he trains with the Z-Fighters and his wife, #18, doing all he can to mold a better future for Earth. Yet, even with the best of intents, he's unwittingly changed the future greatly through many factors. AU. Lemons.
1. Adolescence

The news that Cell had at last been defeated was something that affected many people worldwide.

In the days leading up to it, there had been a blanket of dread and suspense over the world populace, every person able to comprehend it all wondering with great, but silenced, terror if everything would end for them soon.

The world thinking it had finally been over, that the world was safe once again, was therefore one filled with celebration.

Many cities lauded Hercule Satan as the savior of the world, with everyone from the average citizen to the king of the world himself giving him great respect.

As this occurred, the true savior of the world watched the parade from a rooftop, an open but forgotten textbook in his hands as he looked down, hearing the crowds' cacophonous cheers for Hercule, their praise, gratefulness and all other things drowning one another out, things like flowers and other such things being thrown onto the float he stood on, posing dramatically.

"This seems pretty dissatisfying."

The words of the woman's low voice captured his attention, and he looked back to the source of it.

"#18?"

"Hey there." She said, arms crossed as her heeled boots clicked against the roof with each step, her sitting down next to him. "I take it you wanted to see this stuff?"

"A bit. It's nice, seeing everyone happy like this." Gohan replied.

"Really?" #18 glanced to him curiously. "You aren't mad about everything that guy's been doing?"

Gohan didn't respond for a few moments.

"I know the truth." He decided to say. "It's hard hearing him treat everyone like they didn't help beat Cell. But even if he didn't do anything, I'm still happy to hear how happy everyone is. It helps put things into perspective."

"What do you mean?"

"My Dad died because of Cell. He said he wanted to leave it to me, to protect Earth. But I was still sad about what my anger caused. How it's basically my fault it happened. At least this way... It's easier to know how much I really helped." Gohan smiled sadly. "I hear it being used so often, people saying they'll destroy the planet or something. It's terrible, sure, but you never get a feel for just how many lives could be at stake. I don't think it's really possible to. Now that I see all these people though, people who were so afraid of what was going to happen... I know, just a bit, just how much it means to save the world."

They watched the parade continue for a few sparse moments, the crowds' cheers and applause drowning out even the most minute space for silence.

"I wanted to tell you something Gohan." #18 said to him, and he looked over to her. "You helped me too. If not for you, I'd probably still be inside of Cell right now."

Gohan's smile turned bitter.

"I'm sorry #18. But... It wasn't my intention."

"It wasn't your intention to save the world so HE could hog the glory either." #18 cocked her head down at Hercule for emphasis. "But he still did it anyways. So I'm thanking you anyway. I'm glad you were able to find and help us. Things could've been so different, if not for you. So... Thanks."

"Thank you." Gohan smiled gently.

"Hopefully that helps even the scales a bit. It really SHOULD be you down there."

"I'll be fine." Gohan shook his head. "I got what I came for after all."

"Headed home now?"

He nodded.

"What do you plan on doing?"

"Probably study or train a bit." Gohan responded. "What about you?"

"Just roaming around I guess. The world's my oyster. And it's not like my body needs as much food or water as normal people, so there's that too."

"I see." Gohan became pensive, then looked to #18. "Could I ask you something though?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you mind helping me train? Everyone else is sort of..."

#18 thought it over, then nodded.

"Sure." She smiled. "I wouldn't mind helping you get stronger. I don't see any downsides to that."

"Great." Gohan nodded.

* * *

The days and months passed, the world returned to its state of normalcy, the threat of Cell's presence all but forgotten, and yet, with #18 aiding him, Gohan's powers grew in strength greatly, with #18's modified body allowing her to improve in this area greatly as well.

In time, a new threat would rear its head, a group of space pirates who attacked a tournament Gohan participated in.

Despite their immense power however, Gohan's training had prepared him well.

One by one, the pirates were taken down, but not killed.

As Gohan stood over the defeated group and stood with panting breath over their leader, the man tried to kill him in one last dangerous bout, attempting to use his supposed girlfriend as a distraction.

This failed however, as Gohan sped past the woman and diverted the attack, killing Bojack for his actions.

Left alone with the group, Gohan only glared at them.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."

He said this while giving them treatment, and the pirates, stunned by his kindness despite their trying to kill him and his friends, eventually relented and chose to live life serving him.

All of them were incredibly powerful, moreso than even hardened Super Saiyans, and Gohan found himself accepting their choice to be on his side.

* * *

Despite this, his training partner still helped him for years to come.

"#18," Gohan said one day, "could I talk to you?"

"Yeah?" #18 walked over to the panting boy.

"There's... Something I wanted to tell you."

#18 raised an eyebrow at him.

"For a long time, I've... Had feelings for you." Gohan confessed, heart racing as he admitted this. "I don't know how long I've felt this way, but I..."

"Is that so." #18 spoke coolly, glancing off into the distance while crossing her arms. "Are you really interested in an adult?"

"Yes." He said honestly.

Silence passed them by, #18's sharp gaze looking at him, studying him.

"I have a hard time believing that."

"But... You're so pretty, strong, confident..." Gohan sighed. "Sorry. I just wanted you to know."

#18 thought about it.

"Maybe in a couple years." She said. "If you don't fall for anyone by the time you're... 14, then I'll consider it."

Gohan's hopeful smile was all the proof she needed to know this was his new plan.

* * *

#18 soon walked about while trying to meet Gohan again, and her deadline had passed, with her eventually deeming herself Gohan's lover in that time when he asked right on his birthday if she would accept him.

Despite this, their routine did not change drastically, only now there were several late night visits between them where they spent time in Gohan's room, sometimes doing the dirty deed, other times simply spending time with one another.

One day, when Gohan was in the middle of a grocery run, he found her, hiding amongst the trees after their last farewell came with the promise she'd let him do it a large bunch the next time they met.

Gohan walked to the woman's side, her smiling expectantly at him as she hid herself slightly within the forest.  
As he reached her side, the boy found himself looking at her body up and down, lust filling his gaze.

Gohan had become used to #18's presence, him grasping a hold of her shirt and pulling it off of her, #18 moving along with it and throwing her striped shirt away, her braless chest revealing the large F-Cups #18 had.

"Don't I get a "hello" from you before we start?" #18 said teasingly, and Gohan regarded her words, the eleven year old smiling up at her.

"Sorry #18, I just got a little excited."

"No problem." #18 replied, Gohan closing the distance between them, his chinese style shirt pressing against her smooth skin, him gripping the back rim of her tight jeans as they clung tightly to her big ass, his hesitance to do whatever he could to see her naked body having left him a long time ago.

As he ripped them apart, Gohan was greeted once more by the sight of her shaven pussy, #18 sliding herself free of the rags she wore now, her left in nothing but a set of her trademark brown boot heels, which she kicked off as well, Gohan smirking before he pulled off his own shirt, bothering to actually use caution now, his arm throwing his shirt away and revealing the sight of his abs as they rippled down his body, black eyes gazing upon #18, kicking off his shoes and pants, smiling as he finally stood in front of the woman, both naked and not caring.

#18 pressed her hand gently into his chest, pushing the boy onto his back slowly, her crawling back and looking down at his loose length, a degree of it being hardened showing that some arousal had birthed itself within Gohan, and she gripped it with both hands, her blue eyes watching his every reaction as soon as she leaned herself down, bringing the head of his cock into her mouth and sucking lightly on it, Gohan letting out a moan as she played with him.

#18 removed one of her hands from his cock after it started to grow harder, her unwrapping the hand preventing her from sucking on anything below the head of his length. As she moved her head down on his length, Gohan gave a shudder that she loved.

Feeling his length growing more and more inside of her mouth, #18 let go completely of his cock, closing her eyes as she started to hobble her head down on his shaft, sucking hungrily on him, his cock pushing deeper and deeper into the depths of her throat, #18 soon pushing his whole length into her mouth once he became fully erect, the tight, hot warmth of her mouth sending Gohan into bliss as she sucked him off, her eyes looking up at him.

As she finished up sucking him off, #18 pulled herself off of his cock, her smiling down at the massive 11 inch length.

Gohan quickly stood up, having used his powers to float himself up, and walked up to #18, pushing her bare back against a tree, his height making it so her breasts were in his face, Gohan pulling her left knee up as he aimed his cock, thrusting inside of her as #18 gave a short moan.  
He let go of her knee, and #18 wrapped it tenderly around his waist, Gohan's hands reaching around her body and sinking themselves in her ass cheeks, squeezing them for good measure, #18 hopping up a short elevation and wrapping her other leg around his waist, Gohan letting go of her ass cheeks before bouncing #18 on his cock, his eyes fixated on her breasts as they started to bounce, #18 feeling herself start to moan uncontrollably once he started to do this, the pleasure coursing through Gohan as he started to actually thrust into #18, his hands grabbing her ass again and slamming her down on his length whenever she was bounced back up by his hips, the process becoming rhytmic and rapid, their slapping flesh adding to the melody of #18's voice as it reflected her pleasure, her hugging his face into her cleavage as he released the binds of his regular life from his mind.

Soon, #18 felt her insides churning around strangely, her body starting to emit sweat, Gohan noticing this and slamming her down on his length even harder than before, the boy having yet to sweat or show signs of fatigue himself.

Then, with her climax hitting her quick and hard, #18 clenched her grip around him in a vice, her cum spurting out onto his length, before her tiredness got the better of her and she let go of her grip on him, Gohan smiling while letting go of her ass, #18 falling down on it before he pushed her around, #18 working through the fatigue and holding herself in an all-fours position, Gohan aiming his dick behind her and thrusting fully inside of her, holding her sides as his instincts took over, pounding his meaty length into the woman under him, #18 starting to scream from him doing this to her.

The sound was a heavenly gift to Gohan's ears, and he quickly transformed, hair golden and eyes teal, muscles slightly larger as he pounded even harder into #18, the android's breasts bouncing and jiggling around as she was fucked doggy style, her throwing her head back and relishing in his cock growing to be 12 and a half inches long and three inches wide, his blurred thrusts inside of her driving her to her second orgasm within minutes.  
When she arched her back and clenched her walls around him, Gohan once again didn't cum.

He never came that easily.

Her now worn out, #18 rested her cheek on the grass under her, breathing heavily.  
Gohan was still hard for obvious reasons however, and he smiled as he gripped her ass cheeks, for the first time to spread them, and at the sight of her tight asshole, Gohan aimed his length, thrusting fully inside of the hole.

#18 screamed out loudly, arching her back as she pressed it into his chest, Gohan reaching up behind her and cupping her breasts, him placing his thighs against the back of hers, his thrusts so brutal as he felt immense pleasure that an earthquake shook the ground, #18 screaming out as he screwed her, her weakness in her own situation feeding Gohan's lust as he grasped her shoulders and fucked her as hard as he could, his body alit with bright energy as he thrust into her, his hips becoming so fast that no one looking at their combined genitelia would be able to see him moving, Gohan thrusting harshly into #18's asshole, him feeling himself about to release and pulling out of her, rubbing himself off with her ass crack, aiming quickly before thrusting back inside of #18's pussy, him thrusting as deeply inside of her as possible before letting himself go, Gohan moaning lightly as he drilled into her for one last, desperate moment before finally he thrust completely inside of her, him ignoring the wall guarding her womb and breaking through it, his cock's thick head spraying cum deep into #18's womb as she screamed, her eyes wide and her body sweaty and clammy, the woman gripping the blades of grass for support.

Gohan felt his cock start pumping the rest of his cum into her, waiting with lost breath, before he pulled abruptly out of her when his climax ended, standing back up while #18 laid on her face, her ass sticking up in the air still.

She lay like this, out of breath, for a few minutes, and as Gohan looked upon that pleasure inducing part of her body, he started rubbing his hand over her ass as she gradually recovered.

When she had recovered enough to breathe almost normally, she slowly got up, first on her hands and knees, her all-fours position causing Gohan not to hesitate to slap her ass, before she stood up completely, her balance shaky as she stood on her two bare feet, her walking very slowly away as Gohan got dressed in the clothes he once wore, the boy realizing his dissatisfaction at the time the two would spend together.

They'd been doing this for weeks now, whenever Gohan would go to buy food for home, him getting sidetracked by his ulterior motives on the matter, the person who embodied said motives walking away from him then after picking up her shirt and shoes, leaving the remains of her jeans and panties behind.

He'd only do this once a week, and by nightfall, Gohan would feel the urge to try it again.

Though he may have wanted this however, Gohan could only cope with trying to ignore his own erection since he knew no other means of satisfying himself.

And so he called out to her, "Excuse me, Ms. 18?"

She turned to look at him, face somewhat curious, "What's wrong?"

"Do you have a place to stay?"

#18 reluctantly shook her head no.

"Wait here, you'll be staying with me." Gohan said, before running off.

#18 found that there shouldn't have been any harm in this, especially since she could only stay awake for so long before something tried to hurt her.

Going to a fixed shelter would be good.

She waited for a long time, and soon Gohan returned, both with the groceries and a pair of pants for her.

She took the pants gratefully, them being a size larger than the ones she wore before Gohan ripped them off, being more comfortable than those.

Smiling down at him, #18 walked beside Gohan as he walked away, him now in his base form.

"I appreciate you trying to help me," she started, "But you wouldn't be planning on doing something to me later on, would you?"

At her knowing smirk, Gohan blushed lightly, but smiled nonetheless, "I do. I just can't take the waiting anymore for every time we do that together. I thought it'd be easier if you did it at home."

"You could've just come there any day and I'd probably still be there." #18 said honestly.

"Oh well." Gohan reached up, hand pressing against her ass, "I just hope I can enjoy doing it with you as much as possible now."

#18 returned his smile with a smirk of her own, her holding his hand there and pressing it deeper into her ass cheek, "I'd be fine doing that for you. Even for an amateur, you actually know what you're doing."

He smiled gently.

* * *

As the years passed them by, life had settled into a relaxed flow, only broken by the initial backlash his mother had when the revelation that #18 had been dating and screwing Gohan came to pass, courtesy of the android getting pregnant.

Eventually using his knowledge to his advantage, Gohan tried to get a job with everyone else living with him at Capsule Corp., and though the transition was hard at first, Gohan was happy with his life.

One day however, it would all change, even if he couldn't see it for himself while it was beginnning.

* * *

As the man woke up in his bed, Gohan sat up slowly, looking over to the alarm clock besides him and frowning at how early it rang.

It took him a few moments to realize why he'd set it up to ring at this time, but when he did, he reached over and turned it off.

His wife groaned lowly in her sleep, her opening her blue eyes slowly to look up at him.

"It's that time already?" #18 asked in a blearing tone.

"Yeah." He said down to the woman, leaning down and kissing her forehead, her tired frown curving into a smile as he brushed a few strands of hair from her eyes.

"I don't get why you have to go to school." #18 said to him, her arm wrapped snugly around his stomach. "You've already got a job."

"Bulma said she didn't want me putting all my eggs in one basket." Gohan said, and when he tried getting up, #18's arm tugged on him in a playful manner, her want for him not to leave just yet made clear by this gesture.

Gohan looked down to her, and #18 leaned up, kissing her husband while laying herself against his body, her moving herself so she straddled him, sitting on his lap as she leaned into the man, Gohan's strong yet gentle hands holding her sides as she deepened their kiss.

His arms soon wrapped around her waist, and #18's around his neck, as they opened their mouths and let their tongues explore each other's mouths, the display of affection lasting a few moments before the two parted, both smiling down at one another breathlessly.

Her blue eyes gazed into his onyx ones, and she nuzzled her head affectionately into his neck.

"I'll miss you while you're gone." She said.

"I will too." Gohan said. "But... I don't have a full day schedule at least. I worked it out with the administrators, since I learned most of everything already."

#18 chuckled softly.

"That's my scholar." She cooed. "I hope you have a good day, anyhow."

He hugged her closer to him, and they released a gentle sigh of content in their embrace.

#18 then pulled herself off of him, laying back down as Gohan pulled out of the bed, the man rubbing his tired face as he walked out of the bedroom.

Upon leaving the room, he quickly found his daughter playing with her uncle, Goten doing a high five style game with her as this happened.

"Good morning you two." Gohan said as he walked over to them, the two looking up to the 18 year old and smiling.

"Hey Gohan!" Goten said, happy to see him.

His first daughter, Pan, a young girl that had yet to speak words, only gave a giggle while clapping her tiny hands together.

Gohan reached down and scooped both of them up in his arms, the two laughing as Chi-Chi came into the room.

She smiled at the sight of her family happy, and many greetings were given as everyone went about their morning.

Soon came the time when Gohan said his goodbyes to everyone, from his wife, children and family to the alien pirates who he'd taken in years ago.


	2. First Day At School

"Thanks Nimbus." Gohan said to the floating cloud upon it leaving him at his destination. "I'll see you later!"

The Flying Nimbus flew away, and Gohan decided to run the rest of the way to school.

This resulted in him speeding there at a sprint well beyond human speed, cars eclipsed compared to him in these terms.

Despite this, Gohan would stop at the sound of a bank robbery, him looking to scene and blinking as he realized why he felt so many abnormally high energies then.

"Don't shoot!" One robber said, him holding a struggling hostage in an armlock, waving his firearm menacingly at the police officers with their weapons poised on him.

The unsaid threat of what he'd do if they didn't comply with him made Gohan feel a mixture of contained outrage and mental tiredness.

"What are you doing?" A younger woman came out of the bank, clothes tattered with bullet holes from the policemen who'd died trying to arrest her, her arms covered in sleeves of tattoos as she looked to the people before her. "You're really worrying about a hostage situation right now? I've already got everything."

The man, seeing the girl and the bag over her shoulder, smirked before shoving the woman forward, gun aimed at her back as the woman stumbled forward, eyes wide in surprise.

The sound of bullets shooting made her freeze up, and yet she felt not one shoot into her back.

Somewhat confused, she turned around to the source of the sound, expecting the man to have aimed somewhere else, only to find something more surprising.

A tall figure in baggy clothes stood right behind her, hand up to the gun as though it could stop the bullets, the former hostage having no idea how or when he'd gotten there.

Registering the fact that he'd shielded her from injury, the woman gave a startled cry.

"A-Are you alright?" she asked fearfully, already sorry this youth had such a thing for her.

His response lacking any of the pain one would suffer with gun shot wounds was therefore quite a dissonance from what she was expecting.

"I'm fine." The young man said, tone assuring, and he turned to her, his teal eyes narrowed in concern. "But are you?"

His eyes looked over her, as though searching for wounds, and when she nodded rapidly, Gohan glared back up at the pair of bank robbers.

"You really shouldn't have done that." Gohan said to the man in a dangerous tone, the sound of feet moving against the ground telling him that the hostage woman had run to safety.

The man seemed surprised at Gohan's appearance, then looked to the girl accompanying him curiously.

"This one of your pals Vana?" he propped the semiautomatic weapon onto his shoulder.

"No, never seen him before." His accomplice replied, Vana looking Gohan up and down. "He's pretty fast though."

She smirked the smug grin one could only have when they had the upper hand, and she whipped her hand up, intending to use a ki attack to hurt Gohan.

This was met with confusion when he suddenly disappeared from sight however, her freezing when she felt a thin wire wrap itself around her forearm.

"Don't move." His voice sent a chill up her spine, her confidence from her perceiving his speed when he'd stopped the bullets changing into shock, her brain trying to comprehend just how fast he was when she couldn't even see him moving behind her.

As soon as the words left his mouth however, a shockwave of pain rattled itself through her body, and she gave a furtive scream in pain at this, but her body stiffening up strongly.

As suddenly as the pain began however, it ended just as quickly, Vana being driven to unconsciousness by the pain, Gohan catching her by the shoulders as the Super Saiyan looked up to the other bank robber, whose eyes widened before he pointed his weapon at Gohan as a matter of instinct.

"What did you do to Vana?" he exclaimed, and Gohan, unfazed by the threat of his weapon, set the girl down on the ground.

"Don't worry, she isn't dead." He replied, standing up straight, glaring at the man. "I try to avoid causing permanent damage, if possible."

The robber understood the fact that he stood no chance then, him mentally cursing himself for not keeping his hostage.

Trying to stall for time, he began speaking.

"You might be fast," he said, "but there are plenty of people with powers like you, people who are coming this way."

Gohan, sensing the nervousness of the man, realized that this was a half-truth, but didn't respond.

"So if you don't let us go, you'll be sorry you ever crossed us."

Gohan looked inside the bank, at a nearby clock, and sighed.

Returning his attention to the robber, whose grip on his firearm was shaky, Gohan replied bluntly.

"I'm sorry. I REALLY don't have time for this." Gohan told him. "If you plan on running, do it now. Take her."

This was a ruse, but the robber, in his desperation to get away unscathed, could not fathom this.

"What about the cops?" he asked, waving his gun to the police. "She was my out. Do you plan on just

Gohan closed his eyes and sighed.

He had intended to try letting him and this girl, simply to follow them, but realized how hard this would be without the police complicating the matter further.

"Well, I tried." Gohan said.

In the blink of an eye he was before the male robber and delivered a swift but carefully powered chop to the wrist holding his gun, the man dropping it in pain, before another chop closer to the neck briefly knocked him out, him crumpling to the ground before Gohan caught him by the shirt to lessen the fall.

The young man turned and walked down the steps with this, him speaking to the officers.

"It'll be okay to arrest them now. Be careful about the young girl though. Her powers will come back after three days."

"Just... Who ARE you?" a police officer asked incredulously.

"Just a good samaritan passing through." Gohan replied. "I hope you have a good day."

He moved with such speed that he seemed to disappear, yet despite this, Gohan truthfully had vacated himself to a nearby bush while reverting to his base form, hoping his transformation had been a suitable enough disguise.

He tried sensing out the area for any nearby power levels, but soon realized the robber's deceitful half of his half-truth earlier was in relation to people coming to help.

He gave a breath of relief, then raised his hand up while looking to the wire there.

"I thought I was being paranoid, bringing these," Gohan said to himself, "but I guess luck favors the prepared. Thanks Zangya."

He recalled how he'd asked to borrow her strings for the day, since these strings were good for draining the ki of others if one mastered their use, something Gohan had done for the sake of keeping fights as short as possible whensoever they happened.

Thankfully, his power was large enough that when Zangya and Bido had tried ensnaring him with them, it didn't have too much impact at the time.

Glad he could use the threads, Gohan rose to his feet, content for but a moment before a girl's voice spoke to him.

"Hey, do you know what happened here?"

Gohan looked, finding a girl wearing pigtails, a loose shirt, tight spats and combat boots looking to him with a no-nonsense gaze.

"Uh... A bank robbery?" Gohan was unsure of whether or not to play dumb or not, causing his answer to come out nervously.

"That much is obvious." The girl replied, crossing her arms. "But the way it was sounding on the way here, I thought there'd been a massacre going on."

"Oh, Videl!" A police officer ran up to her as she took her eyes off of the Saiyan, the man not seeming to recognize Gohan.

Though a part of him wanted to leave, Gohan listened to the conversation and learned what the situation had been.

Before he'd arrived, the bank robbers had supposedly tried holding the girl Vana hostage, yet the moment they'd gotten what they'd come for, Vana revealed herself to be an accomplice and killed one of the officers with her powers.

This then prompted them to try gunning the girl down, but quickly proved fruitless as the bullets bounced almost harmlessly off of her, prompting her to kill the rest present at the time.

After taking another hostage, that had been where Gohan had arrived, and the rest Gohan already knew.

"How long ago was he killed?" Gohan asked.

"Between 5 to 10 minutes ago." The officer replied, and Gohan looked to the unconscious man and young girl with a frown. "It's a shame too, he was a good man."

The girl, Videl, sighed heavily as she crossed her arms.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here in time to help." She said.

"It's not your fault." The officer assured her. "At least now you won't be dealing with this gang all by yourself now."

"You mean that blonde fighter that came in?" Videl asked.

"Yeah. He beat the robbers really quickly. I thought I was seeing things for a few seconds at first."

"Do you think one of those gang members decided to split?" Videl surmised.

"There's no way of knowing." The officer shook his head. "They didn't seem to recognize him though."

Videl sighed.

"I don't get it anymore. Just what is it that gives people the power to shrug off bullets like flies?" Videl wondered. "Did the test results from that group I beat earlier come back yet?"

"I'd have to check in with forensics Videl. In the meantime, maybe you could try finding that blonde fighter. He might know what's going on."

"How am I supposed to find him? He could be anywhere at this point." Videl pointed out.

"He was wearing your school uniform. Maybe try there."

Gohan's blood froze at this, and he turned slowly away, him casting a look to the police officer and Videl for a few seconds more before walking away briskly, him mentally cursing (or, at least HIS version of cursing) to himself repeatedly as he realized one detail about his disguise he'd forgotten: His clothes were still the same.

* * *

Gohan, by the end of the day, was mentally tired.

When he'd first arrived late for class, the attention was already on him, and he soon learned that he took a seat near Videl, a girl who, after a few moments of studying him, pointed out how she was currently looking for someone who had his general appearance.

Though her friend Erasa, an energetic and sociable girl with blonde hair, dissuaded Videl from suspecting him being the "Golden Fighter", this still made Gohan remain tense.

In the present, Gohan regarded his circumstances for a few minutes' time, before he went looking for his classmates.

He found them talking to one another, and Gohan, understanding that these were dangerous waters he was stepping into, treaded carefully as he walked to the three.

"Excuse me?" Gohan said to them. Videl, Erasa, and their sporty male friend Sharpener all looked to him. "Do you mind if I ask you guys a question or two?"

"Sure, about what Gohan?" Erasa asked with a friendly smile.

"I heard there's a gang in this town." Gohan said. "Something like how the police have trouble dealing with them?"

Videl's seemingly permanent scowl deepened at this question, but Sharpener was the one to respond.

"Well, yeah. That's how it is for some members though, not all of them."

"So they do exist." Having gotten the basic question answered, Gohan elaborated. "How are they dealt with though?"

"It's usually Videl that needs to be brought in for that stuff." Erasa reached over and supportively rubbed the girl's arm in question, and Videl sighed, tense expression loosening gently.

"Really? That's really impressive." Gohan said to the girl.

Despite this being intended as a compliment, Videl seemed more angered than pleased.

"It's nothing worth praising." She said coldly. "I can barely do anything about those punks when I'm called out."

Erasa and Sharpener shared a worried glance, and the latter straightened up.

"Maybe try telling Hercule about this?" He asked cautiously.

"I can't rely on my father for everything." Videl snapped. "We talked this over already Sharpener."

"But Videl... We think you're letting this get to you too much." Erasa told her.

"But who else is going to help out Erasa?" Videl said. "It's not exactly easy finding someone who knows how to fight these guys."

"Do YOU know how to fight them?" Erasa replied, her tone snappish in how angry Videl was getting over them just trying to give a friendly suggestion.

Videl paused, then scowled, looking away and not responding.

Her silence was answer enough.

"Maybe the Golden Fighter or whatever he's called?" Sharpener asked. "You said he beat some of them too, right?"

"Based on what a cop said." Videl added.

"Maybe HE might have a clue."

"I've been trying to find him all day." Videl responded. "But for some blonde wearing the school uniform, I haven't gotten any luck."

"It's better than killing yourself over this!" Erasa exclaimed. "We don't want to watch you suffer like this anymore Videl!"

"I don't have a choice Erasa!" Videl exclaimed back, the tension bubbling underneath coming out. "It's my job to fight, and I'm the only one who ever gets results! I can't just stop doing it!"

"Videl, we understand that." Sharpener cut in. "We just... You're wearing yourself down. You need help with this, and we want to give it, but..."

"It's fine." Videl said, turning away. "I'm fine. It's normal to be stressed out in situations like this."

She walked away then, and Gohan saw there was a barely noticeable limp in the girl's stride.

"Wait, Videl." He called to her, and she stopped, looking back to him. "You're looking for the Golden Fighter?"

She sighed, then reluctantly turned to look back at him.

"Yeah, I am." Videl said, crossing her arms.

"I think I met him." Gohan said, trying to sound convincing in his lie. "That's... Part of why I'm here. He asked me to send for you."

"Why didn't he come himself?" Videl asked.

Gohan wasn't sure what to say, and this showed, but Erasa's and Sharpener's expectant faces didn't waver.

"Did he say he wanted to help Videl?" Erasa asked, and Gohan nodded to her question.

"Y-Yeah. He just wasn't sure how to go about saying so."

Videl raised a skeptic eyebrow, then brought her hands to her hips.

"Where did he say he'd go?" She asked.

"Uh... Behind the school." Gohan told her, and she nodded.

"Alright. Come with me, so you can point him out to me."

"Huh?" Gohan perked up in surprise.

"I don't know WHERE behind the school he is. He might be anywhere. And I can't really be sure, since I haven't seen him before." Videl said.

Gohan mentally cursed her logical explanation.

"Uh... Okay." Gohan nodded. "But... Before then, could I head to the bathroom really quickly?"

"... Seriously?" Videl asked.

"I'm sorry, it's just I... Uh..."

"It's fine, sorry." Videl shook her head. "I'll meet you back there then.

She jogged past, and as this happened, Gohan released a breath of relief.

"You really know him?" Sharpener asked him, and Gohan nodded awkwardly.

"I'll... Go and help her." Gohan told them, and he ran after Videl.

"Thank you Gohan!" Erasa called, and he waved back at them.

Though he was tired, Gohan had the feeling that Videl fighting amateur street fighters who knew the secrets of ki had caused problems for a long time now, judging from how quickly the situation went south when they brought up an old discussion.

It took Gohan several moments for his mind to register one key detail he heard from the conversation however.

When he realized it, the name Hercule stuck out to him, and he wondered why the name sounded familiar for a few moments, before it hit him.

Hercule had been the one to take the credit for beating Cell, when the truth was it had been him all those years ago.

The 18 year old then remembered another thing Videl said.

"I can't rely on my father for everything." Videl snapped.

Gohan's brain slowly put the pieces together.

His surprise at the ensuing realization was palpable.

And yet, in the face of such irony, Gohan could only laugh to himself.

"Well... How about that." He said to himself, before looking forward. "Alright. Hercule's daughter or not, she seems like a good person. I might as well land a hand."

He ran to the nearest bathroom to prepare for this.


	3. Golden Fighter

As Gohan slipped into the bathroom, he looked about, then tried using his ki sense to see if anyone was inside.

Sensing that he was alone in the room, Gohan walked into the nearest stall before leaning his back against the door after closing it behind himself.

For a moment he stared forward silently, thinking back to the years he'd trained with and under all of his friends, including Tien's teachings, one move the three eyed man taught in those days surfacing in Gohan's memory.

Gohan concentrated briefly, trying to remember the specifics of how the technique worked.

When he'd reached a logical conclusion in his mind, he closed his eyelids and took a deep breath.

He made a sharp yet careful fissure in his energy, feeling it bisect and divide within himself, one half seeming to leave his body and materializing a short distance away from him.

Opening his eyes, Gohan found his perfect copy standing right in front of him.

He smiled.

"I still got it down pat." Gohan said. "I never thought THIS would be how I ended up using it though."

He thought back to the first time he'd seen this technique, during the time when Piccolo and Krillin had been struggling to fight the Saiyan Nappa.

At that time, it had been a life or death struggle, one where Gohan himself had been too scared to help with, given how Nappa had mostly been toying around with them during that time.

The juxtaposition of that situation compared to this current one made him almost want to laugh.

"I'd rather use it for this than a life or death situation, if given the choice." He noted to himself.

Situational irony notwithstanding, he had to admit that looking at his own Multi-Form clone was a strange experience for a reason he couldn't quite place, but decided to ignore his feelings for the sake of efficiency.

"I have to hurry." He muttered, looking at his counterpart's appearance. "Should I change his clothes a bit though?"

He thought back to how Videl had been told the "Golden Fighter" was seen wearing the same uniform clothes he wore then, and with this line of thought, Gohan decided to make his clone's appearance more "ruffled" looking, to make a bigger distinction between them than he'd planned.

The changes he made were small - his clone soon wore an unbuttoned vest and an untucked dress shirt - but he decided that they would have to do.

The Multi-Form clone, acting on his fissured mind, gripped his hands into tight fists, before, in a tiny spark of light, his energy burst in power, muscles bulged in size, as transformed into a Super Saiyan.

"Alright... This should be enough." Gohan nodded in approval, before turning, the pair leaving the stall before leaving to go meet Videl as promised.

* * *

As the sounds of high school sports teams practicing their sport registered as background noise to Videl's ears, she looked back when she heard the sound of the school's back doors opening up not too far from her left.

There she found a blonde young man in uniform, his hair almost looking as golden as his pseudo-nickname by the police had described, somehow more spiky and gravity-defying than Gohan's hair.

His uniformed appearance matched the description that Videl had been given in the past, yet, in spite of this, something very quickly caught her attention.

"Gohan?" Videl asked, her recognizing her classmate's face immediately despite his changed hair and eye color.

He had been walking towards her from the door, stride confident, yet her auditory recognition of him made him freeze in place, eyes widening for a brief moment.

"Uh..." He stammered, at a loss for what to say.

"What're you doing?" Videl asked, hands on her hips. "I thought you were bringing the Golden Fighter along. How'd you dye your hair blonde so fast?"

"Uh, actually," the sound of a second Gohan speaking up caught Videl's attention, and looking to the source of the sound, she quickly saw the flaw in her deduction: Gohan stood in the doorway, hair as black as it had been all day, "that... isn't me."

She blinked twice, as though doing so would clear her vision if she were seeing things, yet the girl, ignorant of what was going on, only acted as any normal person would in that situation.

She looked over to the Golden Fighter, noting the uncanny resemblance, before apologizing, "Oh, sorry there. You two look... so alike. Are you relatives or something?"

The Golden Fighter looked a bit caught off guard, yet with Videl's gaze flicking between them, Gohan gave a mental breath of relief in knowing his ploy had worked.

"We've known each other a long time." The Golden Fighter said to her, lowering his voice an octave or two, talking a bit quickly. "People... They say that about us all the time."

"I see why." Videl nodded, then crossed her arms while looking to the blonde. "So... What's YOUR name then?"

"Oh... Uh..." The Golden Fighter scratched the back of his head. "... Onigiri?"

Videl stared.

"You're named after... rice balls?" she asked for clarification, to which the Super Saiyan nodded to affirm his lie.

"Well... Onigiri..." Videl cleared her throat. "You were involved in trying to help stop a bank robbery earlier today, is that right?"

"That's right." The Golden Fighter said.

"Alright." Videl said. "Witness reports said you beat the robbers' single-handed, even though one was armed and the other had strange powers. Before I say anything else, could you show me proof of who you are?"

"... Sure." He said carefully, as though nervous to slip up somehow.

Videl didn't question it at that moment.

"Would you mind a quick spar on the roof then? I don't want to make a scene out here."

"Alright."

Videl looked to Gohan then, seeing him still standing there.

"We're not holding you up, are we Gohan?"

"Ah, no." Gohan shook his head at her question.

"Do you think you'll be headed home now? I wouldn't want you getting home too late. You're late enough as is, with your half-day schedule in place."

"Oh... Yeah. See you guys later." Gohan nodded, waving before walking away briskly.

Videl looked after him as he went, then looked back to his lookalike.

"Does he have a loitering habit?" Videl asked him.

"Huh?"

"He was late to school today, even though it's his first day." Videl said. "I saw him a long while away from there, at the bank robbery, or at least after you got involved. So now I'm wondering if he has a bad habit of taking too long to get moving."

"Oh, uh... No." He smiled in a slightly forced manner. "He was just... Worried about me."

"Really?" Videl crossed her arms.

"Yeah. We were... walking to school together when it happened."

"So when you disappeared, he was just waiting up for you?" She finished.

He nodded.

"I hope YOU didn't need to get home too early." Videl said.

"Why?"

"If you ARE the real deal, I really need your help ASAP." Videl said. "The situation's gotten a lot worse recently, and I need to know how to fight those superhuman people."

"Ah. The roof. We should go." He said, Videl nodding.

She walked past him to the door.

"Let me show you." She said, leading him away and to the roof.

* * *

The first thing Gohan had to greet him was his mother.

"Gohan," she said as he landed not far from her, "I got a call from your school. Why were you in detention?"

"Hey Mom." Gohan sighed. "I got sidetracked trying to help stop a bank robbery. So I... Ended up being late."

He lowered his head as he said this, knowing how deeply his mother valued education, especially since he had children to take care of.

Chi-Chi, seeming to read his guilt from his expression, gave a sigh.

"I'm glad that you were able to help Gohan," she said, "but every problem in the world isn't yours to fix. You have to let the authorities handle that sort of thing. You didn't hurt anyone, did you?"

"Nothing too serious happened." Gohan shook his head. "I knocked the bank robbers out without hurting them."

"Was anyone else hurt?" Chi-Chi asked.

"Before I arrived, yes." Gohan nodded. "Someone else almost got shot several times."

Chi-Chi frowned, her at the median between wanting to tell him not to do such a thing and saying how she really felt about the matter.

"It's a good thing you were there." Chi-Chi decided. "But did anyone see you?"

"They did, but I was a Super Saiyan when it happened."

She hummed in thought.

"I don't want you to make a habit of this," she said upfrontly, "but... Maybe pack an extra set of clothes or something. I think they can still recognize you from your clothes."

"Okay."

"Beyond that," she stepped out of the row of the farm field she was sowing seeds in, taking off her gloves, "welcome home Gohan."

"Thank you." He nodded, then jogged to the door, seeing #18 there with Pan in her arms.

"There you are." #18 said, smiling. "Did I hear it right? You were trying to fix a bank robbery?"

"Yeah." Gohan said. "Sorry I came home so late."

"I'm just glad you're home now." She shook her head. "Your little brother was pestering me about learning how to fly that cloud of yours."

"Oh, right, I did promise Goten that." Gohan said. "Still though. Could I talk to you a bit before I do that?"

"About what?" #18 asked, her brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear while adjusting her one-armed hold on their daughter.

"Well... I just wanted to talk." Gohan admitted. "See how you were."

She smiled faintly at him.

"You don't have to do that." #18 shook her head.

"I want to though." Gohan said with a sheepish smile.

She chuckled.

"We'll have time to talk later on." #18 assured him. "Take care of Goten first."

"Alright." Gohan nodded, looking to the sight of his younger brother running him up to him while balancing a basket of fruit on his head.

"Hey there Gohan!" Goten said enthusiastically, the man crouching down in front of him.

"Hey there. You went out for a run again?"

Goten smiled, large and wide, Gohan finding it contagious as his features brightened, "Yeah, hehe."

"You think it's about time I taught you how to fly with Nimbus?"

"Yeah!" Goten dipped his head back in his enthusiasm, and the basket nearly fell off his head, if not for Gohan's hands whipping up and catching it between his hands.

"Whoa, careful!" He laughed. "You almost dropped it!"

* * *

Videl breathed heavily as she gazed at the man before her.

"Uh... Did that do it?" the Golden Fighter asked slowly, unnerved by the potency of the negative emotions he felt in her ki.

"Yeah." Videl muttered, finally dropping her stance and holding her head. "That proves you're definitely not one of the normal ones."

"Did... I do something to make you mad?" He asked.

Videl sighed.

"No. I don't know if you'll get this or not, but when I fight those jerks, the fact that nothing I do ever hurts them really, REALLY pisses me off most times. So this... This reminded me of that."

"I see." He frowned. "Do you mind me asking about these people though? How long have you been fighting them?"

Videl plunked herself on the ground beneath her, her wiping away beads of sweat from her face.

"It's been about a few years now." She told him. "Before, these guys weren't that much of a problem. They started out as this social group focusing on fighting the other gangs on the more dangerous side of town. They weren't the most successful group though, not at first anyways. That changed when their leader died in some of shootout. After that, they all started to be more... Aggressive."

"Aggressive how?" He asked.

"I don't know exactly what changed, but suddenly, there were all these shootouts happening where it was one-sided. A bunch of people kept shooting at them, but then they were killed, the people doing the shooting. The police chalked it up to a bunch of blunt trauma cases, since that's what it looked like. But the truth was, after their leader died, that was when they were suddenly bulletproof. No one could hurt them, no matter what. Before long, all the other gangs here got flushed out... And the only one left got a lot worse."

Videl looked over the edge of the roof, to the city surrounding the school.

"They started breaking into people's houses, taking their children... Sometimes more, but usually the children." She closed her eyes, propping her right elbow on her corresponding knee after pulling it up. "It was around that time I started getting involved with the police, helping them out. When I heard what was happening though... I was in over my head. They tried to warn me, but I went ahead and searched all over for them anyways, by myself."

She shook her head.

"It went about as well as you'd expect." She admitted, tone a mesh of different emotions, a level of shame and disgrace the most blatant among them. "I thought it was a good idea to go out on some stakeout to try and follow them, like I was some movie hero. It was so dumb of me, but after I'd beaten a bunch of crooks, I thought I could handle it. I thought being my father's daughter meant... I could take on the world and win."

He looked down, sighing heavily.

"Sorry, I guess you don't want to hear me spilling my guts out." Videl looked down.

"I'm... Willing to listen." He told her gently.

"Are you sure?" Videl asked.

He nodded firmly.

"... Alright." Videl looked to her right, to the city, tinged in the orange glow of sundown. "I tailed them back to their hideout, after they'd taken their next victim. Then I snuck in after them, planning on beating all of them and bringing the children and others back to their homes. By then though, a lot of them had joined that place too. And... It looked like they were worshipping something when I got inside. I tried getting some of them to leave, but the whole gang caught onto what I was doing. And those people with powers? They... Overwhelmed me. By the time they were done with me, they'd broken both of my legs. I was in the hospital for months, just trying to get surgery to fix them. In the end though, I had a lot of trauma to deal with..."

She took a deep breath, as though trying to settle her nerves.

"You're really brave." He said down to her, and Videl smiled in a mirthful manner.

"Either that, or really dumb." Videl said. "I've been trying to fight again ever since I left the bospital. It's not the same as before though. My legs feel so hard to walk on most of the time."

"Why don't you give them time to heal?" Gohan asked her, expression reflecting concern.

"I don't deserve that much. It was my own cockiness that got me like this in the first place. It's just another reminder that I'm not my Dad."

"Why don't you ask him for help?" Gohan asked. "Did he know?"

Videl nodded.

"Of course he did. He was furious. But... I didn't want him to get involved." Videl lowered her head. "I don't know. Maybe it's my trauma. But I always had this feeling... One deep, deep down, that if he got involved, and tried fighting them, it'd be just like that day all those years ago."

""That day"?" Gohan asked.

"We were both really young when it happened, so... You might not remember." Videl said. "But... 13 years ago, there was this whole thing of alien spaceships crashing down on Earth. Not long after they landed, the entire city they landed in was destroyed, with everyone with them. Not long after that, the King sent the World Military out to deal with them. But... Most of them died to one of those aliens. Before that day, I always thought my Mom and Dad were the strongest people in the world. That... No matter what, nothing could stop them. When that alien thing came fighting... That changed. She died in the middle of all the fighting, my Mom. And after that, no one found the person responsible."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's fine." Videl sighed again. "I just... I always think back to that time, and wonder why it had to be that way. My Dad was able to beat Cell, but... Something in my gut told me that this was different. That... It WOULDN'T be okay if he went out to fight this gang. I don't know why I felt that way, I just... Did."

The Golden Fighter had fallen silent.

"Do you want to know their secret? To how they could be so strong?" he asked her.

"You know it?" Videl asked, and when he nodded, her eyes narrowed in a determined manner. "Tell me, please. I need to know how I can fight them on even terms."

For a few moments, he gazed down at her, as though gauging her.

"I'll teach you how." He decided.

* * *

A/N: I'm not sure if it was ever specified, but Videl's mother, Miguel, was stated to be like Chi-Chi's mother in that she died at a time where her daughter was young. It was never specified HOW young though, and since she and Gohan are the same age, and Gohan was 4-5 at the time of the Saiyan Saga, that would be a time Videl would be young as well.


	4. Reflection

"Gohan? Do you mind if I ask you something?"

The man in question opened his tired eyes to look at #18, who laid next to him with a pensive expression.

"Sure." Gohan nodded slowly after processing her question, him adjusting himself to better pay attention to her.

#18 propped her elbow on the bed and held the side of her head up.

"When your father died all those years ago, he was still in the afterlife, right?" She asked, watching Gohan's expression carefully.

The subject of his father's death had always been something of a sore subject for him, primarily due to Gohan largely blaming himself for it coming to pass in the first place, yet after seven years, #18 thought it best not to beat around the bush when the topic came up.

She was unsure if this was the best way to go about it, but it was better than just sweeping it under the rug and pretending it'd just go away, as far as she was concerned.

True to form, Gohan winced gently, but nodded.

"Yeah. He went to someplace called the Other World."

"I see." #18 glanced down. "I was never really sure whether or not to believe in the afterlife or any sort of god thing, especially after becoming an android." She lifted a hand up to her face, thinking back to the days when she was still a simple, helpless orphan girl. "It's been bugging me for a while now though."

"Really?" Gohan asked curiously.

"Yeah. That's actually a question I've been wondering for a long time now." #18 admitted.

"Why wait until now?" Gohan asked her.

She pondered it for a few moments.

"I was scared of what the answer might have been." She told him. "What it would mean for me. I wasn't exactly the the picture of virtue even BEFORE I became an android after all. That's ignoring the fact that I thought gods just didn't exist at all once I became one. My data on you, your father and all your friends... All of you had these powers that were inhuman. You could easily call yourself a god, and none of us mere mortals would've been able to question it. Because it might as well have been true. When I learned that, it made me question if there was any such thing as a god, or if it was all hogwash and hearsay from superpowered beings from the past that got deified by people who didn't know better."

#18 looked to Gohan for a few moments, then smiled bitterly.

"Now I know then. Though I'm still wondering if there's any such thing as Heaven or whatever. And whether or not I'd be welcome there. Maybe it's because of you, or even because I'm a mother now, but I just don't want to say goodbye, ever."

Gohan became pensive.

"Maybe we could go to Dende and ask." He suggested. "Just to be sure?"

She hummed in contemplation.

"That seems like a plan."

"Okay." Gohan smiled in as comforting a manner as he could, him wrapping his arm around her back and pulling her closer to his body, #18 smiling in turn and resting her head on his chest.

"I guess you're pretty awake now, yeah?" #18 asked him, glancing up at him.

"Yes. But it's fine." He shook his head. "I'm glad you opened up to me about this. I don't want to say goodbye to you either."

#18 chuckled, then leaned up, pressing her lips against Gohan's as they shared a tender kiss, relaxing in this way.

As she broke the kiss however, #18 lifted her her slender leg up and wrapped it around Gohan's, gazing into her husband's eyes, the emotions curdling within her gaze making Gohan's heart run aflutter.

Smirking at him, she leaned up and gently nuzzled his neck with her nose in a flirtatious way.

"We've got plenty of time before you head to school." She purred lowly, her then brushing her lips against his neck, Gohan feeling a faint shudder run up his spine. "Why don't I reward you, for being such a good husband?"

Gohan's breath became slightly more parted and heavy, and #18's blue eyes searched his expression anew, something within it being much to her liking.

He answered her not verbally, but physically, pinning the blonde android down on her back as passion became his guide, him opening his mouth and pressing his tongue against hers, them flecking and dancing around one another in a saliva-filled tangle as moans emitted from the depths of their throats.

Gohan ran his hands up and down the length of her body, the years of growth and training being kind to her shapely hourglass figure, and then, breaking the kiss, #18 huffed in anticipation while Gohan reached down and grasped the cups of her bra, him tearing the fabric in half with a loud snap as #18 shrugged it off of herself, her large and firm breasts having grown two full sizes in the years since the beginning of their relationship, the pale flesh of her H-Cups being freed by his actions as #18 smirked, a level of arousal being derived from his more animalistic side being let out, her watching as he handled her panties with equal ruthlessness in tearing them off.

Laying naked under him, #18 reached a foot up and snagged the side of his undergarments by her toes before tearing it off of him in turn, her gazing down at the sight of his hardened erect dick being freed from its prison, the giant meatstick that was harder than any metal in being aimed down by Gohan's hand, intent on entering her baby-maker, only for #18 to grasp his hand to stop him, the man blinking as she sat up in front of him.

"Sit down." She said to him, helping him comply, the woman getting off the bed and sinking down on her knees in front of him, briefly staring down at his dick, before smirking up at him. "Since I'm awarding you, I'll do anything you like. _Anything_."

At these words, her permission to him to leave all restraints in his actions behind, his arousal flared up within the pit of his stomach like an inferno, and he smiled down at her with visible excitement.

#18's smirked broadened in turn, her pulling her large breasts up and wrapping them around the base of his dick, Gohan entering a state of bliss as the soft, malleable flesh of her breasts wrapped around and squished the base of his pole, #18 beginning to pull and push her breasts up and down his dick while watching his expression change from excited to pleased, this continuing as she leaned down and slowly trailed her tongue along the length of his dickhole, him involuntarily clenching his buttocks and closing his eyes at the strong, yet tortuously calculated pleasure her mouth gave him, her leaning down after doing this a few times and wrapping her lips around the large, red shape of his dick head, her sucking sharply as Gohan groaned under his breath.

Her tit-fuck lasted several moments as #18 gazed intently up at him, her bobbing head growing more forceful in her movements and her sucking, the action helped by the years of practice she'd gained from it.

Giving him a blowjob had originally made her jaw hurt, whether due to the act of keeping her jaw widened for so long or because of how hung Gohan was, but now she was rather used to her android body, and as such, feelings of pain could be temporarily disabled.

The result was her sucking on his cock, yanking her head up and shoving it back down in a repeated cycle of powerful sucking that could put a vacuum to shame in how powerful it was, and such was the potency of the blowjob that any lesser man would lose their minds if they were given such a thing.

For the powerful Saiyan however, she found him grunting and groaning at the mixture of her tit-fuck and sucking, holding himself in even as she sucked so powerfully and pleasurably.

She eventually pushed the tip of her tongue against his dick hole once more, and wriggled it to add to the other acts to please the man above her.

She was unsure of whether or not she would draw his inner self out, but she not for lack of trying.

On the contrary, when enough time passed, #18 acted with a skilled amount of precision in how she gradually stopped pleasuring him in the midst of her suck session, and Gohan grunted lowly, looking down at her as her blue eyes reflected the smoldering smugness she felt then.

It was a split second later that #18 knew she'd wrung it out of him, when he stood up, no longer subservient to her orders, and grunted, in a low voice, the word "Suck."

His hands whipped to the sides of her head, slamming brutally into the sides of her skull before his large hands' fingers gripped her head tightly, a grip that could crush large rocks into pebbles in an instant, before he gave a ruthless thrust into her mouth, the head of him ramming into the back of her throat with the impact of a car running someone over.

Then he pulled back, angling his harder than metal dick and shoving it in much deeper, down her throat, it stretching to accommodate the thick size of him, her functions going haywire from this alone as the smell of Gohan's musk intoxicated the woman, even as he continued to ram himself into her throat repeatedly, going deeper and deeper, until #18 finally felt her nose press against his crotch, apple-sized dick head now touching itself into parts of her chest.

He gave a cruel, almost condescending smile as he felt this, then began to ruthlessly fuck her hot, tight throat, the raw flesh of her throat mattering little to him as he began ruthlessly pounding his dick deep into her, and #18, knowing within herself that she was at his mercy, felt a great wave of arousal well up within her as she obeyed his order, sucking rashly with even greater power than before as Gohan plundered her mouth and turned it into his personal pussy, her enduring the pounding of his flesh as he grit his teeth, her tongue scraping against the length of his cock rapidly as she did so, her teeth scraping along the lower half of his rod as it was thrusted and heaved in and out of her mouth wthout mercy.

When, after several minutes of fucking her mouth in this manner, Gohan shoved himself into her mouth fully, #18 was prepared, and his semen came down her throat in hot, steaming spurts, him returning to his act of fucking her mouth, slamming her face into his crotch over and over as #18 gazed up in a dazed manner up to him, her mind not having a full idea of how long had passed, but her having been conditioned for fucking so much that it had become instinct, her not even realizing she'd climaxed from her own arousal as her fluids stained the floor.

His yet unswallowed seed flooded her throat, and the thick cum caused her cheeks to slowly bulge out as it sloshed around in her mouth, yet even as the horse-like cock stopped ejaculating in her maw, she did not swallow, even as Gohan pulled his dick out of her mouth, its head leaving her mouth with a loud popping noise as #18 kept her lips pursed, her mind swimming with euphoria as her blue eyes gazed up at Gohan, who smirked down at her, him not nearly satisfied yet.

"Don't swallow." He said, and his hands released her head, instead taking a firm grip of her blonde hair and pulling her up to her feet with one hand, #18's arousal clear to him from her quivering legs, soaked wet from her own sexual fluids.

He continued to grasp her hair in such a manner as he pulled her along, them walking to the closest window and leaving out, going out into nature without shame as they go deeper into the forest.

Once deep inside, Gohan released her hair as his hand gave a viscious slap to her big, shapely ass, smirking at the sight of it jiggling before he aimed his large cock into her hot and dripping womanhood, pressing it gently, teasingly, against her folds as #18 winced from the strain of withholding herself under him.

He reached his hand up, trailing it up her body before cupping her large breast in his hand, gripping it as her firm boob melded under his fingers, before releasing it and grasping her head.

#18's mind was then afflicted with a vision Gohan gave her via the psychokinetic abilities Piccolo had taught him long ago, and the android's eyes widened.

 _In the vision, she was on her hands and knees in an empty meadow with Gohan standing behind her, a dog collar connected to a chain around her neck, Gohan gripping the chain in his hand as he gazed down at her body, him sinking down to his knees behind her and pressing the head of his cock against her opening._

 _With a short thrust, his cock was shoved into her thoroughly stretched cunt, and #18 gasped as she felt this, only for it to descend into moans as Gohan began moving and thrusting his large, thick cock in and out of her with immense skill, her moaning as it scraped itself along her insides, her pussy being shaped to his dick as he gazed down at the moaning woman._

 _Gohan's cock scraped against her womb entrance repeatedly, every collision making her mind go blank as she groaned out Gohan's name loudly._

 _He tugged roughly on her neck whensoever she did this, and would ask down to her, "Do dogs talk?" he asked, accompanied by a sharp slap to her rear as he kept thrusting into her, their flesh clapping, the power behind Gohan's thrusts making her firm ass jiggle, his eyes glued to the sight of her flesh._

 _#18's pussy contracted whenever he would yank on her neck, in a fit of something Gohan could only assume was a sort of submission born masochism, and he pounded himself into her more fervently with this in mind._

Though the vision had been all in her head, it still drove #18 over the edge with pleasure as her trembling knees threatened to collapse under her as she climaxed, her very nearly opening her mouth and releasing all of the thick seed that Gohan had instructed her not to swallow or drop.

Gohan, feeling the hot juices squirting out over his cock, smiled as he kept the vision up, before casting a second and a third onto her mind, #18's legs buckling under the euphoria and pleasure the intensive sex of the visions stimulated in her body, and Gohan finally thrust fully into her, the sex droid arching her back at the feeling as Gohan lifted her knees up and spread them apart from behind, lifting her up as his hands and cock held the woman up in the air.

She breathed heavily, eyes rolled up her head as she gazed up at the star-filled sky, before Gohan began bouncing the woman on his cock, her mind unable to tell vision from reality as she felt Gohan fucking her, it feeling like she endured four different sex acts at once as Gohan dominated her, every climax she was driven to in the visions overlapping with the ones she felt in reality, Gohan feeling her climax almost every few moments, him gradually amplifying the intensity of his movements and his visions, and #18 grew so sensitive in turn that even the slightest movement of Gohan's cock inside her was enough to drive her to her pleasurable peak, the piston-like thrusts the man gave as he plowed into his woman therefore making her drown in a sea of pleasure.

After what felt like a pleasurable eternity, Gohan transformed in a burst of golden light, and the Saiyan, by then, was so dextrous in his sex that his ki flowed into #18 with every collision of his cock head against her womb entrance, #18's already Earth shattering state of pleasure ascending even further, the bump in size his cock underwent from this causing her to give muffled screams as Gohan kept ramming himself passionately up into her in sync with his bounces on her cock.

Then came the long-awaited word: "Swallow."

#18 began gulping down the thick expanse of semen that filled her mouth and throat, her struggling not to slip up as her mind slipped further and further into the depths of sex-filled insanity as she endured Gohan's masterful thrusts, and once she finally finished, she allowed herself the right to scream her pleasure, feeling her walls clamping down harshly on Gohan's cock in a vain attempt to make him cum, Gohan's teal eyes looking into her dazed blue ones, him smiling at the sight.

At long last, he shoved himself fully into her, holding her still as #18 trembled violently against him in the aftermath of such godly love-making.

Gohan slowly pulled out of her, yet despite him no longer moving to pleasure her, her body was still processing the pleasure he'd given her, even as the visions he'd plagued her mind with vanished.

He lifted her off of his cock, then dropped her on her ass on the soiled ground as she fell on her back, shaking body only tensing as she squirted a large amount of sexual fluids out every few seconds, her sweaty body glistening in the light of his Super Saiyan form, yet, in #18's sex-addled mind, there was still a part of it that was conscious of the fact that Gohan grasped her ankles and raised them high in the air, cock prodding her pussy once again as more spikes of pleasure rippled up her spine.

Then, as Gohan underwent his second transformation, his cock spiking up in size even more than before, #18's hands gripped the blades of grass in a subconscious effort to anchor her mind to the world.

Yet once Gohan began thrusting down into her cunt with all his power, speed and precision, her eyes snapped open as wide as possible, her breasts bouncing up and down as an earthquake tore through the entire planet, mind unable to comprehend the vast amount of pleasure she now experienced as she was fucked, her ass jiggling against the shaking ground as Gohan's flesh rammed down against hers.

In that period of time, nothing registered in her mind as she was brought over that edge of pleasure-induced insanity, words alone incapable of ever describing how deeply she felt the pleasure that plagued her body.

Then, after she'd climaxed from his thrusting somewhere her detached mind configured to be somewhere between a thousand and a million, he finally rammed his dick fully into her, prodding himself past her womb entrance, before his cock sprayed his thick, virile seed into her, holding himself inside her womb with the intent of impregnating her.

#18 gasped in deep breaths of air, body trembling in pleasured satisfaction, and Gohan pulled out of her, cock still as hard as before as he gazed down at her.

"On your knees." Gohan's voice said, and though she looked up to him, she smiled, turning herself around and getting on her knees and laying the side of her head on the ground, her ass sticking up in the air for Gohan to see, him seeing his children slowly spilling out of her cunt, and he reached forward, fingers grasping her buttocks and spreading them apart, him seeing the tight hole of her rectum there, #18 closing her eyes as she tried to brace herself for what was to happen.

His cock pierced her asshole ruthlessly, with Gohan indulging his desires without shame or thought for the consequence.

* * *

"Huh?" Gohan blinked as he realized how empty the school was when he finally arrived there several hours later (after a harrowing lecture from his mother about not exercising restraint... again).

He approached the doors, and found a sign that said that school had been closed as a result of a large earthquake shaking through the area.

Gohan blinked, then sighed to himself.

"This is probably the biggest downside to having all this power." Gohan whispered to himself. "I can't even do it with #18 without holding back."

He sighed, then turned around.

He had the day off, so he wondered what to do for a short while before deciding to go somewhere to be more productive with his time.

* * *

"Hey there Gohan!" A woman called as she waved up to him from Kame House while wearing a one piece swimsuit.

"Hey there Maron." Gohan said as he landed on the beach, smiling to her in a friendly way before looking around. "Is Master Roshi around?"

"Oh yeah," she nodded to him, looking back at the house behind them, seeing the old man ogling her and waving back to him obliviously, "hey Master Roshi~! Gohan's here for you!"

Gohan's smile became a tad bit more forced at the sight of what Roshi was doing.

Roshi _did_ realize he was ogling Krillin's wife, didn't he? Gohan wondered.

Did this fact not deter him at all?

Such questions were ones he rarely, if ever, asked verbally, yet Gohan had come to terms with the fact that he was perhaps the _only_ person in his family, beyond his late father, with any interest in seeing Roshi on a regular basis.

Even Gohan, pacifistic as people tended to describe him, had little patience for the old man's perverted mannerisms.

This showed itself most clearly when Roshi wouldn't stop harassing #18 several times throughout the day when she and Gohan had stayed at Kame House for the celebration of Krillin and Maron's baby shower almost a year prior.

At that time, Gohan's anger at Roshi being such a bother to a married woman who kept giving not-so-subtle hints that she wasn't interested in being the hermit's sexual eye-candy was potent enough that the baby shower escalated into an all-out brawl between himself and Krillin as the latter utilized his Kaioken techniques and other such powers to hold Gohan back to the best of his ability.

This was later compounded with #18 getting involved, and later still, his mother (who'd decided to pick up martial arts again after seeing the group of Gohan's allies training as a collective unit), and it steadily just grew less heated and more ridiculous as Gohan's anger spazzed out from them all fighting him, when all sides knew they didn't want to hurt one another.

Thinking of this memory brought an ironic smile to his face, and Gohan walked inside when he saw Roshi gesturing for him to come inside.

The two talked to one another, the tone of their conversation friendly, and Roshi eventually asked, "So, what brings you here?"

"I agreed to help train someone in my class to know how to fight." Gohan said.

Roshi looked to him, and Gohan's posture entered a somewhat sulk-like form.

"Are you sure you want to be taking students again?" Roshi asked him. "After what happened the last time?"

Gohan nodded slowly.

"I know it probably doesn't seem like the smartest idea." Gohan said. "But it's different this time around. She's already fighting for a good cause, but she doesn't have the strength to win."

Roshi stroked his beard in thought, tone solemn.

"That's the same situation your last student was in." He pointed out. "I'll admit, there's some merit to _teaching_ a person to fish instead of getting it for them, but you have to consider the potential consequences of this."

"I have. I'm more worried about the consequences if I _don't_ teach her the powers I have." Gohan admitted. "I don't want it to end up like that again. But at the same time, I don't know how to go about it."

He looked up to the old master.

"The reason I came here is because I was wondering about your teaching methods." Gohan explained. "I want to give her the tools to win, but I want to teach her not to go out looking for a fight either. I don't want her getting some kind of savior-complex from this and biting off more than she can chew."

"You don't have any control over that." Roshi told him. "That being said, you and the others can decide for yourselves if you want to give a new addition to your group. If she can grow effectively, and she really is a good person, I don't see any problem with you mentoring her."

Gohan nodded.

"Why do I get the feeling you're still not sure about it?"

"It's because I'm worried about everything." Gohan gently shook his head. "I'm supposed to be the world's Protector, and I've tried to follow in everyone's footsteps, everyone I look up to. That's what made me think that training those kids all those years ago would be worth it. But it all went so wrong. So many people got hurt. And... no matter how I try to justify it, it's still my fault at the end of the day. That they got corrupted by their own powers."

Roshi fixed him with a hard stare through his sunglasses.

"Power, in itself, doesn't corrupt." He told him. "What corrupts people is when they forget their limitations, or don't bother keeping themselves in check. You have to teach them the things that are important too this time."

"Do you have any suggestions?" Gohan asked. "You trained my father and Krillin, and they're some of the best people I know."

Roshi pondered it.

"Do you think she'd be up for it?"

"If it teaches her the right way, I'm sure it will." Gohan nodded.

"You'll probably have to bring her here then." Roshi said.

"Alright." Gohan nodded. "Thank you, Master Roshi."

"No problem." Roshi said, and Gohan left not long after, not realizing the potential, though not as terrible, problems bringing Videl to the old man might bring, him more caught up in his own memories to realize it until much later.

* * *

 **A/N:** I feel a little bad that most of this chapter ended up being a lemon between Gohan and #18, but it's one of those things where the gag of Gohan being strong enough to offhandedly cause an earthquake gets a dose of reality dabbled in with it.

QinQon: So in other words, you don't think I'm being very creative with this alternate universe? I'll admit I rushed the first chapter, but several changes were made.

Zangya and Bojack's other cohorts are living with Gohan here, Videl got both of her legs broken fighting members of a gang with ki-based powers some time before she met Gohan, it was mentioned that Gohan trained with the other Z-Fighters instead of slacking for seven years this time around, Videl's mother died in the Saiyan invasion instead of dying in the middle of a singing career, and Gohan never became Saiyaman, nor has he even given a bigger disguise a passing thought.

Those are just the changes I've made apparent in these chapters.

Beyond that: Saying me keeping Gohan's canon, "adorkable but good-hearted", personality, instead of writing him to be powerful makes the story lame is like you writing a Naruto fanfic where Naruto's the same idiot out to save the world and his brother-figure, and someone saying the fact that you DID write him as an idiot out to save the world/Sasuke as he is in canon makes the story lame as a result.

If you think it's lame that I wrote Gohan's personality like his _actual personality_ , I don't know what to say. Maybe you should look somewhere else then, or even write your own version of Gohan's personality that you like. Heck, I'd even read and give a review on it if you linked me to it.

If what you were hoping for was something like Gohan being stronger or more powerful, that's fine, Gohan is BOTH of those things here, but that's not the focus of the story, or at least not the focus of this story arc right now.

With this story, half the point of the premise was helping me explore the actual chemistry that could come up from Gohan and #18 being in a committed relationship. The OTHER point is Gohan's mental journey to work out a number of problems as he tries to be a good replacement for his father as a hero.

It's his problems with himself that the story's focusing on, and that's what half the story's been about so far, people struggling with their own doubts about the world around them and coming to terms with it somehow (like Videl's insecurities about being too weak to make a difference, Gohan's guilt about his father's death, #18 wondering about whether things like gods or the afterlife are real).

Right now this story isn't meant to be something that reads like a story mission in Dragon Ball Xenoverse, where someone's more powerful than they should originally were at some point, it's just me trying to explore aspects of DBZ characters I find interesting and write a story about them.


	5. Explanation

"... You're not serious."

These were the first words Videl said when she learned of the first exercise Roshi had in mind for her.

Before her stood a mountain, one that had a very, VERY high reaching staircase on it.

The Golden Fighter gave no sign of hesitation as he shook his head.

"Master Roshi's training involves this." He told her. "It's only fair."

"I heard his training methods were supposed to be intense," Videl continued to stare at the insurmountable obstacle standing before her, "but this is... This is just..."

The Golden Fighter's stoic expression faltered behind her, and he rubbed the back of his head.

"Well... Let's start small." He suggested. "I wouldn't want to push you too hard, if you think you can't handle it."

Videl frowned at this, his words unintentionally wounding her pride.

"I mean... That doesn't mean you can go easy on me." She said in a stiff tone, crossing her arms.

"Why complain then?" He asked her, giving a befuddled reaction to her shift in attitude.

"Well... This wasn't what I was expecting." She admitted.

"Sorry, but this was the recommendation."

Videl thought of the little girl the police had placed in custody, after the Golden Fighter had incapacitated her, how police and witness reports said she was able to kill trained policemen, people who were trained specifically for what amounted to subduing criminals before even having a chance for the badge they wore, and she frowned deeply.

"I'm not sure exactly how effective this will be though." She said upfrontly, looking back to him. She decided to be completely honest about her concerns then. "It might be that they just trained better and harder than me, I don't know, but is doing this really going to help me fight people who shrug off getting shot at? Or is there some kind of magic or something I can use?"

He seemed to grow uncomfortable from her words, yet Videl still wanted answers.

"Well... I'll try teaching you my way then." He decided. "Sorry."

"Don't sweat it." Videl shook her head. "I mean, come on, I got to meet Master Roshi today. It's not everyday someone gets that kind of chance. He seemed like a pretty cool guy, on top of that."

"He's usually more... Eccentric than that." He tensed lightly.

"That's fine. I still got to meet a living legend today." Videl told him. "Thanks for trying to get the best guy available."

His discomfort seemed to vanish with this, and Videl smiled.

"Sorry if I sound picky, I just want to be sure I can be of use."

"I understand that feeling." He nodded. "Do you mind if you promise me something, before I teach you?"

"Sure. What?"

"Can you promise never to let your power go to your head?" He asked. "To always remember what's important?"

This gave the girl pause, something in her mind thinking back to the gang she had been unsuccessfully trying to fight.

When they had started out, they had only started out with the intention of being something to remedy the other gangs rampant in the streets.

But once they had gained the power to do so, their once admittedly noble intentions had been warped into them becoming a worse problem than the ones they'd set out to rid their homes of.

"You mean... Don't be the same way as the people I'm fighting?" Videl asked slowly.

"Yes." He nodded, and the solemn tone he affirmed her words with made her understand, on an instinctive level, that this was not a question she could take lightly.

She crossed her arms, thinking of how far her enemies had fallen once the power afforded to them was gained, and she realized that she didn't know if she could promise such a thing wouldn't happen to her.

She could probably tell herself that she wouldn't succumb to hubris, think herself to be more powerful than she was, that she wouldn't be the same as those punks.

But then, the truth of the matter was still present, and always would be: That she was as human, as fallible, as them, as liable to fall to the same mistakes.

"... Even if I got my legs broken by them, they're still people, just like me." Videl said. "I WANT to say that I'd be sure not to let it happen... But it happened to them too, eventually, even if their reasons were good at first." She sighed. "I'm sorry if I can't promise you that I'll be better. But I'll do my best."

He glanced down to the ground.

"I've seen my fair share of battles in life." He said. "Fights that left me so terrified and angry. Some people I've fought were monsters, and it's only because I got stronger that I survived up to now. I used to think it was all because they were just pure evil. But..."

He closed his eyes, a memory flickering through his mind, of one of his former disciples standing over the bloody and mutilated body of someone who'd been bullying them and others routinely for months.

"I've realized that the worst sort of threat to people isn't when someone's evil. It's... when they're misguided, and they think they're doing the right thing. That's when they're the most dangerous. I don't know if that's the case with the people you've been fighting, but I don't want that for you."

"I see." She closed her eyes. "I'll do my best... But, if I do end up losing myself... Can I trust you to stop me?"

He nodded, and the hidden melancholy of the man before her made Videl wary of herself.

"... Thank you."

"Let's start."

* * *

"Gohan~!"

This call was enough for Gohan to tense up in the midst of his instructing Videl, him looking up to find his younger brother flying down on the Nimbus cloud with a big stack of large, rectangular lunch boxes.

"Goten?" He blinked, and Videl looked to him.

"Did he just call you Gohan?" Videl asked, and Gohan mentally cursed to himself.

"... Yes." He admitted, and with a sigh, he reverted back to his base form.

"... I KNEW it!" Videl exclaimed. "It was only because of that trick thing you did! How'd you clone yourself Gohan? When?"

"It's a martial arts technique. I'm sorry for lying Videl." Gohan said.

"Oh, no, I get it," Videl told him, "I mean, with everything that's happening, I'd try hiding my identity too if I had powers."

"So you... You're not surprised?"

"I mean... Gohan, you didn't exactly do much to hide yourself. You look the same regardless." Videl said.

"Well crud." Gohan muttered, sighing. "Thank you for understanding, but now I just feel dumb."

"I forgive you. So... Wait," she looked to Goten, who looked at her curiously, "what's your name?"

"I'm Goten!" The young boy said with a wide grin. "I'm Gohan's brother! Who are you?"

"My name is Videl." Videl replied. "Gohan agreed to train me for right now. Did you need him?"

"Mom wanted me to bring him lunch" Goten said, him releasing the large stack of food as Videl blinked. "He forgot it at home."

"All of this?" Videl asked as she looked to the big stack. "That's... A lot."

Gohan chuckled a bit awkwardly.

"Goten and I have REALLY big metabolisms, long story short. So we need to eat a lot..."

* * *

Once their lunch was finally finished - Videl had never seen such brazen eating before - she looked over to Gohan as they sat under the shade of a tree.

"Gohan?"

"Yes Videl?" Gohan perked up and asked.

"Sorry if this seems rude or anything, but... Just how many things can you do?"

Gohan blinked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well... In these last 24 hours, you've cloned yourself, you made yourself blonde, and you have a family heirloom that's a cloud you can fly on." Videl told him. "I'm just wondering if there's anything else I should know, so I can be prepared."

He looked down in thought for a moment.

"Uh... You know that earthquake that hit last night?" Gohan asked her.

"Yes but-" Her eyes widened in realization as the dots connected in her mind. "- Wait, really? YOU did that?"

"Yeah." He sighed.

"But that was one of the worst ones we've had in years!" Videl exclaimed. "Even the ones that happened three years ago weren't as bad as that one!"

His face reflected palpable guilt, and he lowered his head.

"Gohan... You're not joking?" Videl asked, shocked.

"I'm not."

"Why?" She asked. "Why did you DO that?"

"I didn't mean to. My wife and I were talking, and then we both in the mood, and then... Ugh." Gohan held his head. "I just messed up and didn't hold back."

"The WORLD has earthquakes when you get busy?!" Videl asked. "How the hell is your wife even ALIVE at this point? How is that even possible?"

"It happened the first few times too." Gohan said with notable regret. "I had to use the dragon balls to wish things back to normal."

"... Please explain."

After explaining it, her baffled comments alerted Gohan to just how alien the world he lived in was.

"So, essentially, you have a genie, in the form of a giant green dragon, that grants you any two wishes... And you used them to fix the world after you knocked it off its axis?" Videl asked. "I don't mean to be rude but... Just how much TRAINING did you do, to get where you are?"

"It... Sort of started when my father died the first time." He saw her perking up at him saying the word "first". "I was taken by my other father figure for a year, and he left me in the wild to see if I'd live. Then I trained for several months, and then had some magic stuff done to me by an elder. After that... I just trained for eleven years."

"That's actually kind of scary." Videl muttered, crossing her arms. "The guys I'm fighting... They aren't on your level, are they?"

"They aren't. Don't worry." Gohan shook his head.

"Oh thank God." Videl held a hand to her chest and sighed in relief. "I want to help, but I don't think I'm ready for that sort of SCALE just yet, know what I mean?"

"I guess?" Gohan chuckled.

He thought back to what #18 had told him the night before at Video's sheer shock at his capabilities.

".. _. My data on you, your father and all your friends... All of you had these powers that were inhuman. You could easily call yourself a god, and none of us mere mortals would've been able to question it. Because it might as well have been true."_

It became poignantly clear in his mind that she was right, all things considered, as Videl seemingly proved right then.

"Still though. I can't help admiring you Gohan." Videl said as she looked up. "Someone with that kind of power probably would've let it go to their heads by now. I mean, if just doing it with your wife ends with you causing Earth shaking earthquakes... Oof."

"I know I messed up. I'm sorry." Gohan muttered.

"That's just so ridiculous though." Videl said. "I don't know whether to laugh or just... Did you wish it back to normal again though?"

"I did, this morning." Gohan nodded. "I don't get why they canceled school though, since I did that."

"Well, usually, once you send a notice saying school's canceled... Yeah, they usually just keep it canceled. I bet some people are scratching their heads at what happened." Videl looked up to the tree branches overhead. "That being said, if your wife's alright with it... Couldn't you just wish for the world to sturdier? Or something? So it doesn't get completely thrashed every time you guys..." She made this gesture with her hand. "Yeah?"

Understanding her meaning, Gohan could only pause in brief awe at this, the implications of such a wish leaving him speechless.

"... How did we never think of that?" Gohan asked, more to himself than Videl.

"Hehe." She chuckled lightly at his dumbfounded expression. "Well, now you know what to wish for next."

"I guess so. Thanks Videl."

"You're welcome." She nodded.

After they resumed their training for a regulated amount of time, they said their goodbyes as Videl flew away in her chopper, after Gohan denied needing it (he also mentioned his capacity for flight, but she guessed as much eventually).

With this, Gohan headed home.

* * *

"Hey boss." A bluish-green skinned man with orange hair greeted him as he floated down to the farm. "Did your trip go as planned?"

"It went well." Gohan replied as he neared the man. "How about for you Bido? Is your day going well?"

"It's the usual for me." The man said. "It brings back a few memories, you being gone. I remember when your pals didn't much trust us. It makes me appreciate what we have now, y'know?"

"I see." Gohan nodded and smiled. "That's good. Would you say you've finally adjusted to life here?"

"Yeah. The queen can be a bit rough sometimes," Bido cocked his head to the house, him referencing Chi-Chi, "but I can respect someone like her. You're all alright in my book. Though, granted, I couldn't exactly figure you out for a while. It was surprising, that someone could be so powerful. It's even weirder that you spared us honestly."

"Maybe. I don't really like killing," Gohan told him, "but if I have to do it... I will."

"Hmm... Is that a warrior's code?"

"Maybe it is. I just know I hate the idea of people I love getting hurt. And I know that, for every person I kill, they'll be someone else's #18, or Pan, or Goten."

"That makes some sense. Zangya wasn't really all that bitter about you killing Bojack by the way." Bido added.

"I kind of figured. We never really talk much, but whenever we do, she seems... Fine. Happy."

"I'll speak for most of us when I say that we didn't really think much of Bojack's whole "take over the universe" scheme. Just logically speaking, that's a LOT of land to cover, and there's barely five of us as is, and we're not even fit to lead. We were mercenaries for crying out loud. He'd have to be giving the power back to the people he conquered to keep any kind of hold."

"That... Is true." Gohan said, before thinking back to Frieza, and grasping his chin in thought. "I wonder if Frieza had that sort of infrastructure. He was an emperor, but..."

"What's on your mind now, boss?" Bido raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Just thinking back on an old enemy." Gohan replied. "I'm wondering if there's more of his allies elsewhere. He had a brother after all."

"Huh. Well, whatever you choose to do, you know where our loyalties lie."

Gohan smiled, and Bido smirked in turn.

"Thanks Bido."

In the past, #18 would often make a point of saying that these people calling themselves the Galaxy Warriors were only siding with whoever was the strongest they could find, which just happened to be Gohan at the time.

Gohan had taken this as advice to watch his back, but as he grew accustomed to life with them, they seemed to grow more fulfilled with their lot in life than when they'd first met.

This seemed especially linked to Chi-Chi's decision to work on cultivating a farm: While they were given work to do, their experiences gave them previously unknown skills, ones they once saw as a productive waste of time, but later saw as something they could appreciate, having the capacity to make a new life for themselves.

Speaking of which, "Zangya?"

The woman looked over to him as he stepped inside.

"Hello." She said, her in the midst of combing through her long orange locks of hair with a frown.

"You look nice." Gohan complimented her with a smile.

The woman wore a two-piece suit that complemented her abnormal skin tone well.

"Do you really think so?" Zangya asked, crossing her arms and sighing nervously.

"Of course. I think you look good everyday, so the suit helps."

"Thank you." She said, and this elicited a small smile from her. "Right now, I'm headed to Capsule Corp."

"Oh, I see, you're going for the job interview too?"

"You guessed it right." She nodded. "I don't get why I'm nervous though. I could blow the place sky high if I wanted, so this is just weird."

"I'm sure you'll do well." Gohan said. "It's okay to be nervous though. Just because I'm stronger than Mom doesn't mean I don't feel nervous when she's angry."

"Your Mom could kick all our asses combined though." Zangya told him with a straight face. "There's a difference."

"Well, alright, but still."

Gohan only refrained from chastising her for her sometimes less than stellar language because Goten and Pan were both out of earshot.

Zangya sighed.

"Are you SURE I look good in this?" She asked, facing him and straightening her skirt.

He gave her a quick lookover.

"You look fine." He said.

"But not good?"

"I'm saying there's nothing wrong with it." Gohan amended. "Don't get cold feet Zangya. You can do this."

Zangya nodded with clear reluctance, her beginning to walk past him, to the door.

"Alright. See you later."

She picked up a pair of heels at the door and flew away not long after.

"Alright." Gohan said, before going to check on #18.

He wasn't surprised to find her sore from what happened.

"Hey #18."

"Welcome home." #18 said, laying face down on their bed.

"Thanks... Sorry about last night." Gohan said, and he looked away from her. "I... I went too far with it."

She smiled up at him despite his words.

"And I wanted it that way." She said. "I like it when you're passionate. That's usually when you don't let anything hold you back."

"Still though..."

"If you really feel that way," #18 raised her waist and swayed her hips side to side, "are you going to make it up to me?"

"If you'd be willing." He flushed faintly.

"C'mere." She replied, and Gohan approached.


	6. Guardian

What Zangya found was not what she was expecting, in regards to her supposed job.

She stood in front of what Bulma called the gravity room, and the sounds of Vegeta's yells reverberated itself inside it.

"Bulma... THIS is the job you were offering?" Zangya asked as she looked to the blue haired woman.

"That's right." Bulma nodded, puffing out a cloud of smoke from her cigarette.

"... Seriously?" Zangya questioned.

"I figured you'd be better suited to this than the last one, given your talents."

Zangya stared at the woman for a good while, frowning in displeasure at both this and the shade Bulma was throwing at her.

"My job is telling Prince Prick when to come for dinner?"

She understood the value of being grateful for the things she had, especially second chances, but THIS was just insulting, especially since what happened last time wasn't even THAT bad.

She'd only destroyed a few THOUSAND zeni worth of stuff, that was NOTHING to this woman, and the THING Zangya had accidentally made wasn't even hostile. At first.

"Hey, he's not THAT bad, once you get to know him." Bulma said, visibly upset at her calling Vegeta Prince Prick.

"How DO you know him Bulma?" Zangya asked.

Bulma tried to give a natural answer, but the brief pause she gave before she did told Zangya enough.

"He may be abrasive, but deep down he's got a good heart to him." Bulma said.

"Right..."

Bulma sensed the diplomatic sarcasm radiating off her tone.

"Oh come on, it's not like YOUR track record's all that better." Bulma said defensively.

"At least I ADMIT my ex was an ass!" Zangya shot back. "At least mine PRETENDED to care, before he tried killing me. What's YOUR excuse?"

Bulma scowled, eyes flaring with anger, as she tried to give a retort of her own.

Yet, in that moment, Zangya managed to do something no other creature could even fathom doing when Bulma got worked up.

She made her shut up.

"Even ignoring that, assuming there's actually SOMETHING good about Prince Prick... That doesn't mean I have to like him."

"That's the point of work." Bulma said. "Doing things for money, even when you don't want to."

Zangya sighed.

"Alright... Thank you for letting me work here, anyways." Zangya said.

"You're welcome." Bulma nodded, smirking in silent victory at the fact that, no matter Zangya's arguments, she was still the one to sign her paychecks.

Leaving her to her own devices, Bulma walked away, leaving Zangya to hear the muffled yells of Vegeta from inside.

Zangya walked along to the nearest couch and plopped herself down, sighing.

After several minutes of hearing yells and grunts, Zangya made a game of tapping her middle and index-fingers against her open palm to answer an unspoken question she had.

"... It DOES sound like that." Zangya mused to herself after half a minute of yells and... Tapping.

"Sounds like what?"

The young boy's voice caught her attention, and she looked up.

"Oh, nothing important." She said, lowering her hands. "Trunks, right?"

"Yeah." Trunks walked over, hopping onto the seat next to her.

"I was just curious about something. You'll get it when you're older."

"What's with this "til you're older" stuff?" Trunks muttered. "It's so lame."

"You're lame, shush." Zangya crossed her arms.

"Did Mom give you your old job back?" Trunks asked her after a moment.

"No, she gave me a new one. I'm here to help your dad with getting some food or... whatever."

"You're all dressed up just for that?" Trunks asked, face marred with shock at her formal attire.

"I know, don't remind me." Zangya groaned faintly. "I didn't know this was the job. Does he spend a lot of time in there?"

"Yeah, most of the day actually." Trunks said. "He doesn't really like Gohan for some reason, so that just gave him another excuse."

"Does your dad like ANYONE though?"

"Sort of." Trunks shrugged.

"What did Gohan even do?"

This question came from a place of genuine curiosity; Gohan was about as likable as could be, as far as she was concerned.

"I don't really know." Trunks shrugged again.

"Huh... Well, I guess I'll have to ask him myself." Zangya said when she looked to the door.

* * *

For the duration of the trip home, Videl tried to adjust to all of the things that she'd learned that day.

"I'm still half wondering if this is all a really weird dream or not." Videl muttered to herself. "I met Master freaking Roshi today and learned how to fly."

Despite the many interesting things she'd learned however, she couldn't help another concern from reaching her mind.

"Will this be enough to even the odds though?"

Her radio blared as she said this, her looking to it.

"What's wrong?" Videl asked after answering.

" _Videl! It-It's those gang members again."_ The static-laced transmission of the officer calling answered her, her hearing the sounds of pained screams and gunshots ringing through the air. " _They're attacking the police station_!"

Videl's eyes widened at this news, before she scowled.

"I'm on my way! Hang in there!"

This gave little solace to the man as a ball of ki shot down into the machine, the ensuing explosion sending him flying back to the floor.

"You really think calling for help is going to change anything?" A young man asked as he smirked down at the defenseless man.

The officer scowled, then scrambled onto his feet, eyes narrowed.

"Do you even realize what you're all doing?" He asked. "Do you even care?"

"It's a matter of pride." The boy said, and the second he moved, the cop reached his hand to his firearm instinctively, the young man placing a hand over his chest. "We can't have you annoying us anymore."

A ball of ki blew a hole through the man's chest, blowing him back as the rest of the precint fell into chaotic disorder.

* * *

When Gohan would hear the phone ringing, he didn't think much would come of it.

When his brother called him however, both he and #18 were roused from their conversation, Gohan carrying their daughter as he walked out to go to Goten.

"Yeah Goten?" The elder brother asked the seven year old.

"It's Videl." Goten said as he held the receiver up to him, a curious but slightly worried tone to him. "She sounds serious."

The word "serious" often translated into "something is in danger" when it left Goten's lips, and Gohan tensed, and even Pan, in her innocence, seemed to grow silent as she saw her father's expression change.

"Okay. Thank you." Gohan nodded, taking the receiver and bringing it to his ear. "Hello? Videl?"

" _Gohan_ ," Videl said on the other end of the line, " _can you fly over to Satan City? The gang is trying to kill everyone on the police force. Can you come over and help me fight them?"_

Gohan mentally cursed.

"I'll be right there." Gohan said, and Videl said her goodbye before they hung up, Gohan walking back to his room to find #18 at the door.

"What's wrong?" #18 asked him, frowning faintly.

"It's Videl. The gang she was fighting, they're attacking the police right now. She wanted my help taking care of them."

#18, understanding implicitly, nodded.

When he had told his wife that he was training the girl earlier, she had voiced her concern over whether he was sure he wanted to take on a new student again, after last time, but he had told her enough of the situation to know it wouldn't do to leave her be.

Gohan's initial intention, in training Videl, was preparing her to deal with such threats by herself, but #18 doubted that someone could close the gap in power in just a few hours, and it was with this understanding that she acted to take Pan out of his arms.

The infant had other plans however.

She flew up, blue eyes gazing up at her father briefly before she did a gesture to hug her father.

"Win Papa." She cooed the only two words she spoke to him in her young age, and something inside Gohan immediately melted at this action.

"I will Pan." He smiled down at her with the warmth only a father could hold for their child, and Pan floated away, landing into #18's arms again as she snuggled up to her mother's bosom, #18 smiling down at the girl as she began rocking her.

She then looked to Gohan, nodding firmly in support, and with great determination, the gi-wearing man turned, running out of the house and speeding away by flight.

#18 walked to the door to watch him go, Pan clapping her hands after her Papa, and the nearby Bido quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Gohan flying away in such a hurry, looking to #18.

"Did something come up?" Bido questioned from the field.

"He's going out for a fight." #18 said, before Pan began floating up again, reaching out after her father before #18 caught the baby. "Not yet Pan."

She brought the baby closer to her again, and Pan looked up to #18, then gave a small little pout to her mother.

"Don't give me that look." #18 said, bringing the baby closer to her and rubbing her nose against Pan's, this act inciting the girl to lose her false expression and burst into a fit of giggles. "You'll get to help Papa when you're older."

"Why not let her have a go?" Bido questioned. "She has the power, that much is apparent."

"I'm not letting my baby go and fight these kind of battles." #18 replied curtly.

"You have to admit it'd be hilarious though." Bido said, the bearded man chuckling. "Just this baby girl floating over a pile of people beaten up, and they're all just losing their minds over how a baby can kick their asses so much."

He instinctively ducked when he saw #18 raising her foot up, the act a normal reaction to her whenever Pan was in the midst of cursing, and seeing him doing this, the message was clear enough that she didn't attack immediately, letting the folly slide.

"You know it'd be funny though!" Bido called.

* * *

As Gohan flew, he sensed out the high concentration of power levels as he neared Satan City at immense speeds, him landing on the ground, speeding forward as he neared the police station.

Outside, a gaggle of people were lounging about, and when Gohan stopped in front of them, a gust of wind came with him, alerting them of his presence.

"What the hell?!" One the gang members gave a shocked sound at this, it looking as though he appeared out of nowhere.

The sight of pedestrians gathered, injured and dying, made Gohan scowl, and though one of the gang members attempted to attack him, he was far too quick.

The group saw him one second, and then, the next, punches connected to all of them, them all crumpling on the ground with looks of shock frozen onto their faces.

Standing at the door, Gohan did the Multi-Form technique, his doppelganger crouching down and pouring ki into the bodies of those who were attacked, some of them being healed greatly with this, while the real Gohan sped inside to fight all of those remaining.

* * *

When Videl finally arrived, she landed her coptor to find ambulances taking people onto gurneys as Gohan stood outside, waiting for her with his hair golden, him having transformed before she arrived.

She got out, and didn't even capsulize her vehicle as she sprinted towards him.

"Gohan... You're already here?" She asked in shock, confused that he managed to make it there first, when she had a two hour head start on him at least.

Gohan looked to the pig-tailed girl, nodding solemnly.

"I am." Gohan said. "I took care of things here."

"What did you do exactly?" Videl asked as she heard this.

"I knocked them all out." Gohan said flatly. "I would've done worse, if there weren't already people wounded and dying."

Videl's gaze flickered with understanding, and looking to the people inside, she sighed.

"Why would they do this?" Videl questioned to herself while crossing her arms.

"Someone sent them." Gohan said, sighing. "Someone who... Wanted to draw me out."

As Videl's expression morphed into one of confusion, he began walking forward, eyes downcast.

"You? Why you?"

"I need to go." He said to Videl. "Can you hold down the fort here?"

"... Sure." Videl nodded, deciding to just let him handle it. "What are you going to do though?"

"Find the person responsible for this."

He crouched down briefly, and with a push of his legs, he sped through the air at the speed of a bullet, energy covering him as he sped off through the night sky.

As he went, he thought back to one of the gang members he'd fought, the conversation they'd had.

He had been visibly frightened, the gang member's previous arrogance shattered in the face of someone who could so easily mop the floor with all of them combined, Gohan standing over him with naught but ruthlessness in his eyes after punching him to the ground.

"H-Hey, what are you doing?" He questioned Gohan at that time, his immense power causing him to say this in recognition. "We're doing just what you said to do!"

Having mistaken him to be in league with someone else, he had said this.

Gohan took a firm grip of the young man's neck and lifted him up, the carnage present all around the room, of policemen who did not deserve this sort of fate, rendering all parts of Gohan's mind that vied to give mercy in a fight moot.

"Who are you talking about?" Gohan questioned, his glare making the helpless man grow more fearful.

For all this time, the gang member had been completely unaware of the existence of others who were so powerful, beyond the people who'd given them this power in the first place.

"T-That army doctor!" He said hurriedly, trying to claw at the hand gripping his jugular, desperate for it not to squeeze and crush his neck. "He's been doing experiments, and he sent us to kill the cops!"

"Why?"

Gohan, sensing his fear, gave the smallest tense to his unyielding grip, and this act was enough to remind him of his position.

His life, despite his power, was completely at Gohan's mercy, with him utterly helpless to do anything about it.

"H-He wanted to us to draw out the Golden Fighter!" He said frantically.

Gohan narrowed his eyes.

"Where is this doctor? WHO is he?"

"I-I don't know!" He stammered, and Gohan narrowed his eyes. "That's all I know, I swear! Please, don't kill me!"

"... Heh." Gohan's small chuckle made his blood run cold, a smile creasing the Saiyan's lips. "That's what you're worried about, after all this?"

Gohan knew very well that this was the truth, but anger had brought out the darker impulses dormant inside of his usually kinder mind.

Every shred of mercy inside him dying with this killer's desperate, hypocritical plea, Gohan forced an illusion into the man's mind, one where Gohan gripped the man's neck fully, feeling the bones crack under his grip with the frailty of twig, splintering into many smaller and smaller pieces.

Yet, as the man had requested, Gohan did not let this kill him.

With the same motion, he channeled ki into the man's body, so that his body could still live despite his neck being snapped and tubes crushed in.

He dropped the body of the man to the ground, and proceeded to leave him to his fate of feeling his body dying slowly, but him unable to move or do anything to stop it.

In reality, Gohan did not injure him at all, but he let his body fall to the ground, unconscious from the shock of the vision, leaving him with this near-death experience to traumatize him enough to impress upon him the evil of his own actions placed against him.

Thinking back on the man's moment of desperation, in light of him killing policemen and policewomen without a second thought, Gohan scowled.

The temptation to kill him had been present, in the face of how many that man and his friends had killed, along with those they WOULD have killed if Gohan hadn't intervened, but Gohan refrained.

As Gohan had told Bido, despite everything, even that one member desperate to live could very well have been someone else's loved one.

They would be someone who loved a mass murdering coward, but they were someone nonetheless.

Gohan didn't plan on killing unless absolutely necessary.

But that didn't mean he enjoyed the sensation, every time he let someone undeserving live.

* * *

Reaching his destination, the Lookout, Gohan ran up to his long time friend.

"Dende?"

The Namekian had grown much taller over the years, and he looked back to Gohan as he gripped his predecessor's cane.

"Hello Gohan." Dende said. "I take it you needed something?"

"Yes," Gohan said, sighing, "sorry to ask this of you so suddenly, but can you locate someone?"

Dende looked over the edge of the Lookout.

"I'll guide you to who you're looking for." Dende told him.

Gohan blinked.

"You already know who it is?" He asked in surprise.

"I see everything here." Dende replied placidly, giving a tired smile to his friend. "So... I know what you're trying to do."

Gohan gazed at him briefly, then nodded.

"Alright."

That saved him time explaining, at the very least.

"Come with me."

Dende walked along towards the building in the Lookout, Gohan following.

"If you know, do you mind telling me who exactly's responsible for all of this?"

"They're a group of scientists, that splintered away from the Red Ribbon Army." Dende replied. "They've been doing experiments with a different groups around the world for close to a year."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Gohan asked. "I could've helped."

"I was taking care of it, in my own way." Dende assured him, and as they entered the building, he began crouching down over a ball on the floor. "I can't always rely on you to fix the world's problems after all."

"But... how are you even doing it?" Gohan said. "Are you even allowed off the Lookout?"

"I can leave whenever I need to." Dende said, but looked to Gohan. "I have to be careful of the things I encounter though. I can't afford to become impure hearted, as a Guardian."

"I see. But, again, how have you been dealing with this?"

"I've had Mr. Popo go about gathering and training disciples for me." Dende replied, him picking the ball up before unraveling it, it unfolding into a carpet. "These disciples have been acting as my emissaries in some conflicts up to now."

"How did you manage to convince them?" Gohan asked, curious.

"I provided for each of their needs, on the basis that they train hard and fight for the good of others." Dende said. "I've been doing this for several years now, honestly."

"... Why? What made you want to do this?"

"Well... Because you have a different job than I do." Dende said. "Your father left you as the one to guard the Earth against evil, that much is true. But that kind of evil isn't the same kind I deal with. There are problems that are too much for me to deal with personally... So I rely on you when that's the case. In a case like this though, I wanted to see if I could be of any real help without relying on you."

"I see."

"To that end, I've been doing training of my own. I'm not as strong as you, but... I'm stronger than I was before. That being said, going where we are, it's likely that I'll need your help."

Gohan smiled.

"That's fine. There's nothing wrong with us working together. Why don't we work together for this?" He asked. "We could probably make a good team, if we learned to fight together well."

"We'd have to decide that after today then." Dende said, optimistic, him stepping on the carpet before it floated up. "Can you step on?"

Gohan complied with a nod, and as they moved, the speed they moved with was great, them appearing at what appeared to be a base.

"It's here?" Gohan asked, eyes narrowing as he felt a potent energy lying dormant inside.

"Yes."

As the pair descended from the carpet, a figure trekked along from the fort, walking towards them in a non-hostile manner.

Her skin was a snow white, brown hair coming out in short locks, her eyes a piercing blue shade.

"Son Gohan." The person spoke, expression blank as she looked to the much taller of the pair. "Is that who you are?"

"Yes." Gohan nodded simply.

"Understood." She replied, before looking over to Dende. "Who are you?"

"Dende."

Her pale blue eyes flickered with light, and yet she gave the faintest sign of a frown.

"Data Insufficient." She said to herself. "I am not aware of who you are."

"Who are you?" Gohan asked her, the blank-faced girl looking up to him.

Something about her looked familiar to him, but he couldn't place his finger on what exactly.

"Designation: SEED Project 3, Subject Sierve." She responded. "My current purpose is collecting you and bringing you to my maker. For you to arrive so quickly did not align with his expectations, but he finds it simpler regardless. He did not mention what to do with a Dende, however."

"Dende is an old friend of mine. He wanted to have it so that we could come together." Gohan said.

Sierve studied him, gaze unblinking as her pupils gained a reddish hue.

As Gohan tensed at the sight of this, he realized that he was on edge.

He could tell by her complete lack of an energy level that she was an Android (though, strangely, the Red Ribbon Army insignia that was another trademark of androids was notably replaced by a symbol that read "G.R.").

Despite this, her lack of outward hostility was perhaps what set him off most; Dende had brought him there, to the people who'd sent teenagers to try and kill a police department for the sake of drawing him out.

He was unsure what these people wanted with him, but their blatant ruthlessness in achieving their goal was unpleasantly familiar to Gohan, the same sort of unscrupulousness the likes of Frieza and Cell had exhibited, if not by their hands, then by those that followed their mark.

The dissonance he felt from an Android in the form of a little girl being the first to greet him was therefore great.

When the android Sierve's eyes returned to normal however, she nodded mutely.

"Very well." She nodded, then turned away, beginning to walk inside. "My maker is willing to have Dende accompany you. Please follow me."

Gohan looked to Dende, who looked back.

'I should be ready for a fight, right?' he asked the Namekian telepathically.

'Be prepared for the worst.' Dende replied. 'If all goes well, we won't need to fight. If it doesn't... Well, you know the drill.'

* * *

His body felt heavy with the liquid engulfed around him, the man slowly opening his weary eyes.

"Hello again." The shimmering, blurry image of that scientist said as they smiled up to the Saiyan. "I'm glad you were finally able to wake up again. I was starting to worry the DNA transfusions were taking too great a toll on your body."

The Saiyan's hands tensed faintly, eyes narrowing in dulled anger at the person.

"I will need for you to stay awake a bit longer... If you can." The scientist told him. "It's alright if you fall asleep. I only hoped to test your skills against someone else who had similar powers."

Broly mentally frowned, not understanding still where he was, and how weakened a state he found himself in.

Despite his confusion, his exhaustion was as palpable, and he closed his eyes slowly.


	7. Enemy

As they walked inside the fortification, the first thing Gohan took note of was the steady hum of the building, of the rather empty feeling he derived from the looking upon the interior.

The android Sierve trekked along to the center of the building, and while they walked, Gohan took note of her slumped shoulders, her glancing down to the ground quietly as she went.

The odd sense of familiarity that he sensed, upon looking at her, was still palpable, but he could not fathom exactly what it was.

"Excuse me, Sierve?" Gohan finally asked the android, who glanced back in his direction without stopping. "Is there any way we could have met before?"

"It is a possibility." Sierve responded flatly, gazing forward again without elaborating.

"How are you sure?" Gohan asked her.

"My maker explained extensively that the existence I had, before he made me, is unimportant, assuming I had one to begin with." Sierve responded. "Many subjects of the SEED Project were created from the bodies of humans, whose energies were outliers among their populace. My maker has forbidden access to such data, thus, my capacity to answer is insufficient."

Gohan frowned, then looked to Dende.

'How many people are being experimented on here?' Gohan asked the Namekian.

'5, including her.' Dende replied, face stoic. 'There are others still however.'

'I could have put a stop to this Dende.' Gohan replied, tone terse. 'Why would you let something like this happen?'

'Because of what's over the horizon.' Dende responded, calm still, despite Gohan's frustration. 'Despite these experiments continuing as they have, intervening early on would have made the situation worse, in more ways than one. I couldn't afford that.'

'Why let people be kidnapped and experimented on like before?' Gohan questioned. 'What could be so bad that that would make it worse?'

Dende glanced forward.

'You'll understand soon enough.' Dende told him. 'I wasn't only watching, if that's what you were thinking. I've given them hope for freedom, even if they don't understand exactly who it is I am.'

Gohan studied him, mentally wondering just what Dende had been doing all this time, but, after a few moments of indecision, decided to place his trust in him.

'Alright.'

"If I may make an inquiry," Sierve suddenly said, "who IS this Dende you have brought here, Son Gohan?"

"He's a friend, like I said before."

"His biological makeup is unlike any Earth-based creature." Sierve said. "My scanner indicates that he is of similar origin to Demon King Piccolo and Piccolo Junior."

"Uh... Yes." Gohan nodded, though he mentally wondered briefly about how little he actually knew about Piccolo's checkered past.

He knew that Piccolo killed his father, but his father had very literally asked the Namekian to do so, and it was to kill his uncle, so that became a weirdly moot point.

Beyond that, he spent a long period of time with Gohan training, and that was the lion's share of it.

"If he is a demon, my creator may find interest in him."

The three walked along, and as they entered inside, Gohan found himself gazing upon an open room, there being six more people present in the room.

Four of them were children, another was an adult, and the last person was inside a very large test tube filled with various liquids.

Gohan froze over upon seeing all of the people inside, the resulting shock of what he saw rendering him completely silent for a few moments.

"There's no way." Gohan said, eyes widened.

The adult present glanced back to him from the test tube, smile broadened immediately.

"I've spent quite some time preparing for this day." He said as he walked a few steps towards them. "I didn't think it would be so soon though."

"Who are you?" Gohan asked.

"Professor Aemulus." The man replied. "I was involved with the information and DNA gathering of various fighters, during the formation of Cell. I was rather interested in your ability to heighten your power so high though. I always found it strange, how you could turn your hair blonde."

Gohan looked to the children lingering there, before looking to Broly, and then the professor again.

"Why did you take these five children?" He asked.

"Do you recognize them?" Aemulus asked, smiling with callous glee towards his hardened features. "They're the disciples you took on! They had gotten so strong and powerful under your training, I thought it was only fair that someone see their potential through to the end."

The children all collectively looked to Gohan, and the man was at a loss for words at this confirmation of their identities.

"What did you DO to them?" Gohan asked, seeing their unnatural, ice-blue eyes, him looking to Sierve, understanding his past confusion over her identity as the pieces connected, with a rising sense of horror.

"I transferred and built upon Dr. Gero's notes for him." The professor explained. "I thought it would be best to use whatever potential they had for growth as a stepping stone. Ideally, it would have been you and your friends, but all of you were far too powerful for such a thing. These five however... They acted as the perfect guinea pigs. Not TOO strong, but not TOO fragile. I wanted to see how his and my personal research could help heighten human capabilities, before I finally turned my sights onto you. But, with your getting involved in Satan City, it looks like I'll have to push plans ahead of schedule."

"Why the fixation on me?" Gohan asked. "Is it because I defeated Cell?"

"Partially. I've been researching the DNA of you, your father, and others with similar abilities like yours, for several years now. That ability of yours, to transform into those golden haired super beings... I found, eventually, that it was based primarily on the number of a strange kind of cell you had inside of you." He took leisurely steps along to a table carrying a syringe atop its surface, lifting it up. "I got all the samples I needed from the man in the test tube over there. He was rather hard to control, at first, but I managed to find a way to calm him down, and extract his DNA as well."

He smiled at the liquid substance inside of it.

"It's amazing what can be accomplished, through the wonders of science." He mused, before looking up to Gohan. "Now though, I'd like to see how you fare, with the modifications made to the testing subject."

Aemulus turned to look to Broly, before looking to the children, who seemed to have not aged a day since Gohan had last seen them.

"From this day forward, you may now return to Son Gohan's side. He will be able to enhance your strength as needed."

He pulled a remote from her pocket, turning to face Gohan.

"Good luck to you. It would be a disappointing conclusion, for you to die here," he pressed the button, and there immediately came the potent sensation of an energy skyrocketing, Gohan looking to Broly and seeing the Saiyan quickly awakening from his slumber, "so... I hope you can find your way through this time as well."

Aemulus disappeared in a flash of light, and the five child androids looked about in confusion before looking to Gohan as Broly's immense power kept climbing immensely.

The pulse of power that resonated through the glass finally gave way to its strain, shattering apart a split second before a single, thunderous roar burst from the Saiyan's lungs.

Gohan grit his teeth, fists raising themselves up as he prepared himself for his opponent.

Broly's boot rammed down into the ground, the power pulsing from inside him volatile in nature as he looked to Gohan, a violent gust of wind blowing from him as green energy burst from around his body.

The Saiyan that was unadulterated rage personified became consumed in a flash of blinding green light, and Gohan grit his teeth.

"Everyone, RUN!" Gohan exclaimed, and the five children, understanding the danger implicitly, crowded around Dende as he undid the magic carpet and gestured they come to him, transporting them.

With its speeds trumping even Gohan at full power, it was very far away by the time the battle began.

Yet even as Dende finally stopped the carpet over the Lookout a split second later, there came a great trembling over everything inside Earth.

The Guardian's eyes widened in shock at the feeling of the tremors, so great in intensity the very air seemed to pick up and blow about restlessly.

* * *

Chi-Chi's eyes snapped up at the sudden onset of tremors, her sensing her son's power alongside another creature of immense strength, rampant with an irrational hatred.

"... You can do it, Gohan."

* * *

#18 and Bido glanced up in surprise as they felt the pressure of the two powers about to clash, balance uneven.

"What's happening?" #18 asked. "This shouldn't be that serious."

"Win Papa!" Pan exclaimed, seeming to laugh at the tremors more than anything else.

* * *

Videl fell over, onto her knees as she snapped her eyes up.

"... SERIOUSLY GOHAN?!" She exclaimed, misunderstanding what was going on for something else.

* * *

Broly gave a snarl as he unleashed his energy in a barrier that exploded from his body, Gohan's eyes narrowing before he gave a furtive roar of his own, his own energy forming a spherical barrier around him that expanded rapidly and burst forward, the two domes of energy ramming into one another with a violent collision, both rapidly expanding, the speed with which they did so engulfing the entire complex and everything within a five mile radius in the space of a split second.

In the midst of the massive craters that resulted from this mere flexing of their powers, Broly's hair glowed a pale, ghostly greenish-yellow, Gohan's body emanating the golden light of the legendary transformation of the Saiyan race.

For an instant, the pair gazed at one another silently, one gaze filled with absolute hate and the other holding naught but cold calculation.

Then they sped towards each other at great speed, their collision sending such a potent shockwave that it rippled through the area and came over everything, as a chaotic, haphazard wind preceded it, only to be utterly trumped in power by the flurry of exchanged blows that came after, them much too great for the normal, naked eye to comprehend.

The first to land a solid blow beneath their opponent's defense was Broly, who dodged out of the way of Gohan's fist only to grab his wrist, gripping it as his other fist rammed into Gohan's stomach ruthlessly, the half-breed's eyes widening before Broly unleashed a massive ball of energy into his gut, blowing him away at the speed of a bullet as Gohan's eyes widened, before they narrowed, his hands ramming down into the ball as he slowed his speed down, Broly already speeding towards him as Gohan channeled his energy into the ball, twisting his body around, before tossing it back at Broly, who violently rammed his wrist into the side of it with the intent of flinging it away, but as it went, Gohan whipped his finger up and took control of the ball with his pointer fingers, speeding it back down at Broly's back as it imploded with immense force, hurtling him down towards the ground, Gohan speeding down at him as quickly as his power could allow, him delivering a powerful kick towards the bottom of Broly's jaw and making him hurtle back up into the sky.

Not missing a beat, Gohan used the Multi-Form technique to make a singular clone of himself, both it and the original transforming into the Super Saiyan 2 state to compensate for the dip in power, one flying up after Broly as he recovered in the seconds it took for Gohan to do this, him seeing the one flying up at him and gritting his teeth, before spreading his hands apart, balls of energy forming in his palms before he began lugging them down at the clone with large, exaggerated swings of his hands, powerful balls of energy raining down on him, the clone speeding towards him pausing for a split second to change direction and avoid it.

The Gohan on the ground concentrated briefly, before raising his hands up and above him, kicking himself off the ground as the golden energy surrounding him intensified, his hands slapping every ball Broly tossed down at him, infusing his energy into it, before sending it back through the air at a different direction, Broly's onslaught only paused by the kick of the clone that flew towards him at an arc, him kneeing the raging Saiyan with the impact of a speeding truck, the blow not enough to hurt Broly, but enough to derive his attention away from the Gohan below him.

Seeing his opponent next to him, Broly moved at a blur, punching towards the man's face as the clone moved his head to the side to dodge it, only for Broly's missed hand to whip back down and slam against the back of the half-breed's neck, gripping it tightly before he sent his face down and rammed his knee into his face, Broly not stopping for a second as he adjusted his hold to grasp the clone by the hair, swinging his body up and over his head like a rag doll whilst speeding towards the ground to slam him there.

His opponent had other ideas however, him reaching down to grasp Broly's forearm and sending a kick to the back of the man's spine that would have otherwise crippled him if Broly had not become a Super Saiyan.

As he was reintroduced to the sensation of pain, the grip Gohan had on his forearm tightened, and with ruthless action, he had Broly's unassailing grip tear off his hair to pry his grip away from him, Gohan gritting his teeth in pain at this, but not faltering as he gave a harsh snarl, throwing Broly back up into the air with all his might.

It was as this happened that Broly took notice of the many balls of light surrounding him like lanterns, gazing around in mild bewilderment before the Gohan in control of the balls raised his hands.

"Yamcha, Piccolo..." Gohan steadied his nerves as he thought of his friends, pointers fingers up before he brought them together, the Hellzone Grenade he'd recycled out of Broly's violent attacks hurtling towards him en masse, the man growling in his throat before giving a roar as a dome of energy burst from inside of him, ramming into the domes with the intent of blowing them away.

As the orbs of repossessed energy rammed into Broly's dome of power however, the balls rammed and pushed against the dome as they all collectively resisted against its expansion, Gohan gritting his teeth as he held his pointer fingers together.

Gaze hardening, he channeled energy into his touching fingertips, and the balls expanded in size remotely as he released the condensed power inside the balls, and yet it seemed Broly would not yield, growing irritated at his restrained attack.

Understanding this, Gohan pressed his thumbs together as well, dropping the energy balls' resistance to the dome as they were flung away violently.

Released, the dome of energy was truly massive, and Broly released a huff of satisfied air as he smirked savagely at seemingly overwhelming a conflicting force, only for Gohan's voice to ring faintly in his ears.

"Tri-Beam HA!"

A squared prism of energy sped forward and rammed violently into Broly, sending him flying back, but the clone Gohan had sent to divert him still played his part, having flown behind the full-blooded Saiyan and concentrating all his energy into his palms.

"Kame-hame-HA!"

As the beam of energy rammed into Broly's back, the original Gohan kept up his releasing of a flurry of Tri-Beams relentlessly to Broly's body, the two conflicting forces crushing the Super Saiyan between them.

Then, rather abruptly, the original Gohan raised his touching hands, and the orbs of energy he'd used for the Hellzone Grenade sped back towards Broly in the midst of his plight, ramming into him all at once with the Kamehameha wave and the last Tri-Beam Gohan sent his way, the ensuing explosion so incredibly bright that, for a few seconds, the landscape looked as though it were in the middle of the day as opposed to night time.

As the light faded, Broly seemed to falter briefly, eyes narrowed, before he gave another tulmultous roar, an unearthly stillness being concentrated around him as all light seemed to tug itself into him, his monstrous roars reaching a new peak as he ascended.

Gohan's eyes widened in shock when the light faded, him sensing the immense change in Broly's power.

"Is that... Super Saiyan 2?!"

Broly was in the midst of completing his final transformation as he said this however, and with a final push, his body bulked up painfully as his energy began to skyrocket.

Gohan sped forward to stop the transformation, his clone flying to his side and merging with him to return him to his full power, Broly seeming to sense his approach as he raised his hand, concentrating a ball of energy into his palm, him throwing it down at Gohan before it burst into a massive sphere of energy about to home in on him.

Gohan's hand, in response, concentrated a jitter of energy down his arm, the form of the Destructo Disc completing itself at his hand before he tossed it towards the massive ball of energy.

It cut through the median of it, Gohan still speeding unabated towards Broly, and the attack he'd sent was severed as Gohan blew through the opening the disc left, it exploding corrosively behind him and propelling him forward roughly, but not enough to break his balance.

Just as quickly as the first Omega Blaster was sent hurtling his way however, the next came speeding towards him in quick succession, Gohan reacting the same as before and severing the attack to go through it.

The process repeated itself twice as Gohan neared Broly, who sped towards him in turn while concentrating his next Omega Blaster in his palm, it bulging in size, only for Gohan to concentrate his own power in his palm, Broly thrusting the ball towards Gohan, who responded by thrusting his palm into Broly's with a clap, his hand crushing the attack and making it burst to shreds.

Gohan deftly intertwined his fingers with Broly's, the warrior seeing Broly throwing another punch to his gut and catching it with free hand, the man gritting his teeth despite the impact of the blow, Gohan's hand whipping to grip his wrist before he yanked Broly down to him, ramming his forehead into Broly's nose and breaking it, Gohan opening his mouth wide before a beam of energy shot out, engulfing Broly's head for a split second before Broly sent his own head crashing down into Gohan's head, the impact making Gohan feel as if his skull cracked, but him not stopping.

He released Broly's hand, and the speed with which they moved and attacked one another belied their titanic strength, shockwaves littering the skies as if they were filled with invisible bombs, the pain Broly had experienced making him forego his final transformation in order to fight Gohan.

Broly gave a viscious chop to Gohan's neck, Gohan's bones cracking under the impact, but him gripping the man's forearm before thrusting his hand into Broly's face, unleashing a massive, one-handed Kamehameha at point-blank range that blew him back several feet before green energy surrounded Broly, who burst to the side of the attack and flew down at an arc to Gohan's back, a newly formed Omega Blaster in his hand, poised for throwing.

As Gohan whipped around to face him, he lifted and rammed his left foot into the man's intended attack, Gohan concentrating before releasing a beam of energy out of his foot into Broly's hand, pushing his hand back greatly, before Gohan spun to face him fully, delivering his right shin to the side of Broly's neck in revenge for the chop, Gohan pulling his foot back before delivering his left shin into his side with stronger force, a third punch driving the visibly dazed Broly back a few inches, before a fourth punch to the face sent him plummeting down to the Earth, these four attacks done in one singular movement.

Broly grit his teeth as he flew, before giving another roar of anger, him releasing another dome of energy as he stopped himself from hitting the ground, before the energy he'd released concentrated into his palm.

Gohan looked after him to find Broly concentrating energy into his palm, and he began preparing another Destructo Disc before realizing Broly aimed and threw the energy up into the sky, it imploding and expanding in the sky.

"What?" Gohan asked in confusion, but as he looked over, he found Broly gazing up at the Moon he'd created, pausing before he sensed Broly's rapidly growing power.

He looked back to the moon, then entered the position he needed, before releasing a hasty beam up to the false Moon, the beam making it rupture and dissipate, Broly's attempted transformation into a Great Ape being hindered by this, but the transformation having been done somewhat regardless.

Gohan braced himself as the Saiyan flew towards him with a greater fount of energy, the fur growing on his body reflecting how the transformation still affected him somewhat, him attempting to make the most of it as he moved, power and speed doubled as he grabbed Gohan by the neck, attempting to crush it as Gohan grasped his forearm once again, jitters of energy running through his nerves before he made the Destructo Discs align themselves with his palms, them acting to sever Broly's hand before the act could be done, the Saiyan recoiling at the loss of his hand before he moved forward to keep going.

He swung his fist towards Gohan, Gohan crossing his forearms and blocking the punch with his forearm, his bones fracturing under the blow, his eyes narrowing.

"Mom...!"

His mind hearkened back to his days of training with her and the others, when Chi-Chi had utilized the ability Zangya and Bujin's threads to absorb energy, by training herself to use it through her body, and later perfected it to the point that she'd incorporated it into her own fighting style.

Gohan thought back to how his mother had tried explaining it to him, the process of using a person's overwhelming power against them, and he began to utilize it to the best of his ability.

"Maintain physical contact as best you can," she said in his mind's eye, "and then make your energy act like your veins and arteries, some going in, some going out."

Gohan shoved his fractured arms against Broly's powerful fist to push it away, and Broly thrust his left fist forward again, Gohan dodging to his right to keep Broly from grabbing the back of his neck again, Gohan's hand reaching up and trailing along Broly's arm, him sucking in a sharp breath through grit teeth, pumping his energy into the Saiyan while forcibly leeching the energy into his arm.

"Both you and their bodies enter a similar state when you give or accept energy. This will force them to enter that state, even if they don't realize it."

Gohan clenched his free hand into a fist while concentrating the new level of energy he had.

"When that happens, use your own ki to block their capacity to use ki attacks, and keep a mental grasp on it so it won't be absorbed by them. Even if they force their energy out, it will cause them more damage otherwise. After you've neutralized that, attack as hard as you can and overwhelm them."

Gohan's fist rammed into Broly's stomach, the explosive energy channeling itself through the punch and sending him hurtling back.

Gohan remotely controlled the energy he'd planted inside of Broly, and the now one-armed Saiyan tried to enhance his own power into his palm - but the energy there prevented it from happening.

The sensation of what happened then could be likened to a beam struggle, Broly trying to up his power to overwhelm the energy resisting it.

Unlike the eponymous beam struggles however, the result was less a test of endurance and more a race against an unseen clock.

With a mind driven by Saiyan instinct, Broly was immensely held back without the capacity to fight without trying to overwhelm his opponent with brute strength, and the result was a foregone conclusion from there.

Broly forced his energy to intensify, and as his energy tried to move through his arm, it eventually overwhelmed the clot of energy formed there.

The result was not as he'd hoped however.

Overflowing with bottomless energy through a body that could not properly exert it, Broly's remaining forearm bulged from the power inside it, before imploding violently, Broly being blown to the ground as his destroyed arms suffered the consequences.

Gohan floated down to the ground as well, and yet, when he did so, he retched, before he vomitted blood that meshed with the remaining fragments of Broly's energy left inside him.

"It's a really dangerous sort of idea though." His mother had said when she demonstrated it to him through a fighting bot Bulma had lent them. "If you aren't careful about it, it'll cause you to get sick and do a lot of damage to your internal organs. That's why you keep seeing me going to the doctor. You have to get ALL of the energy back out as soon as possible, the same instant you take it, if you can imagine."

Gohan closed his eyes, holding his stomach, but looked up, finding Broly slowly rising to his feet despite his destroyed arms.

Broly, driven to this point, refused to give up, him flying towards Gohan as he readied himself.

Without his arms to wreak havoc however, Gohan was certain victory was imminent.

This thought process abruptly changed in the face of Gohan seeing piles of flesh rapidly growing out of Broly's stumped arms, like bloody entrails attempting a horrid regeneration of limbs that looked like gore covered tentacles, condensed into something resembling hands by the Saiyan's energy.

"What?!" He exclaimed in bafflement, before ducking under a massive, pulsating fist Broly swung at his head, Gohan feeling him ramming the elbow of his new arm into him the second this happened, Gohan flying forward and trailing face first into the ground before ramming his hands into the ground, him pushing himself up, sailing into the air before he aimed his hands, unleashing the Kamehameha wave at Broly, who responded by releasing a beam of energy of his own at Gohan, the two beams clashing, but Gohan sensing his energy plummeting back to what it was before he attempted the Great Ape transformation.

For a few moments, Gohan grit his teeth whilst maintaining the beam.

'Gohan!'

'Dende?' Gohan narrowed his eyes whilst trying to keep his concentration.

'He has a chip in his brain! It lets him regenerate lost body parts!'

Gohan, learning this information, nodded, but did not answer.

"It's over Broly." He grunted lowly, before giving a furtive thrust of his arms as he tried another of his hybrid techniques, jitters of energy spiking through his arms before the energy of two Destructo Disks began traveling along to the beams' point of collision, and upon reaching it, the first Disk began bisecting Broly's beam, being whittled down little by little but persevering and nearly reaching Broly's hand before it dissipated completely, only for the second to come in turn and cut into Broly's newly formed hand as well, the berserker twisting his arm away as he looked fearlessly up to the blue beam coming down on him, letting his body tank the damage of it.

As Gohan did these things however, he concentrated before flying down towards Broly with all his speed and power behind him, Gohan finally retaining the beam and most of its power output through immense strain as he raised his other hand up, a jitter of energy trailing up his arm.

Broly raised his free hand up, preparing an offhand beam of his own for when Gohan entered striking distance, him instinctively starting to do it when Gohan let up the beam at the last second, a final Destructo Disk in hand, Broly swinging his ball of energy up to his enemy, only for Gohan to swing his Disk down towards his wrist a split second before he could unleash it, the hand falling uselessly down to the ground as the energy Broly concentrated dissipated one final time.

Broly grit his teeth, him attempting to create a dome of energy to repel Gohan, but the effort was too late - with a potent, Earth-shaking roar, Gohan threw the Destructo Disk down at Broly's face, it severing everything above his jaw from the rest of his body, the Disk speeding past Broly's head and entering through the Earth, the Disk speeding through the planet and cutting it in half from the immense power curdling behind it.

Gohan landed on his foot as he, once again, concentrated the signature move of the Turtle School, him utilizing the lower grades of the Super Saiyan transformation to up his power output to the max, muscles bulking up as he narrowed his eyes.

"HA!" He snarled while unleashing his energy onto the severed upper half of Broly's head, the beam engulfing it completely and shooting it out into the atmosphere, out into space, destroying his head and the chip enabling his body to regenerate, before Gohan finally ended the long beam attack.

As Broly's corpse landed behind him however, Gohan could not revel in his victory as he felt the ground shaking, many poisonous fumes bursting up suddenly and blowing full into his face, Gohan coughing the many toxins up before flying away.

He mentally cursed, chastising himself for accidentally doing this, before looking up.

'Dende, you have to use the Dragon Balls!' he called to the Guardian desperately.

'On it!'

Dende concentrated, calling to the third wish they'd had left for Shenron, and the rumbling of Earth, as it began to have planet-wide tremors, ceased quickly.

* * *

"... This is... Unexpected."

Sitting across the table from him, arms crossed at the information being given to her by her battered husband under an hour after the confrontation, #18 was, overall, surprised at the nature behind the happenings Gohan had experienced.

"I knew Gero was a loon," #18 said, "but I never would've thought they'd try making other Super Saiyans."

"The fact that they've been watching us for this long probably means they know a lot about everyone already." Gohan said.

"What about Trunks and Vegeta?" #18 asked him. "Do they know this yet?"

"Dende's already going about warning Vegeta and the others. I wanted to talk to you myself though, so we could talk about what to do about all of this." Gohan explained to her.

#18 sighed, lowering her head.

When Gohan left from "family time" to help Videl out with more of that gang of ki users, #18 expected many things, none of them particularly good, especially since he had to fight.

This, on the other hand, was so much greater than what she'd anticipated that she was still trying to comprehend it all.

Gazing blankly up to Gohan, she could only give a silent nod in agreement.

"We have to figure out what they're planning on doing now." #18 decided.

* * *

A/N: I'm finally done with this thing.

I'm sort of a stickler for detail, but to elaborate on some points during the actual fight: Gohan, over the last seven years, as opposed to simply training to get as strong as possible, also learned from his friends about various techniques and the like that he could use.

By this point, he's got enough of a handle on certain techniques that he created his own "hybrid" versions of them to make a fight as quick as possible, so he has things like using the Spirit Ball move meshed with Hellzone Grenade or channeling the Kamehameha with the Destructo Disk, so that, if certain situations crop up, he can keep fighting rather than making the whole thing a power struggle.

I also wanted to point something else I realized a short while I got to writing out the plot outline of this story, which pertains to how and why Gohan can get so powerful so easily.

While being half-Saiyan definitely plays a part, the reason he has so much potential is because of his mother, rather than his father.

To elaborate: Over the course of the original Dragon Ball series, Goku had gone on a one-man fight against the strongest military the world had ever seen, got a Zenkai boost from his fight with Tao, trained on the Lookout, drank dangerous water designed to bring out 100% of his body's potential at that time (as in, taking out natural limiters to keep the body from overexerting itself), got a Zenkai boost from nearly dying to Tambourine, went on to train after killing Demon King Piccolo, and then returned to another tournament to fight Piccolo Jr., the Piccolo people know from Z.

During that tournament, Chi-Chi pops up, and despite being gone for several years, is still at a high enough level to keep up with Goku.

An otherwise normal human girl was able to keep up with a Saiyan that went through EVERYTHING listed above and then-some.

Needless to say, Chi-Chi is a freaking monster, which, given Gohan is able to reach such heights of power in such short time frames, explains that a bit too well.

Also, as much as I enjoyed writing this, I felt like hitting my head against a wall when I learned the new DBS movie would be a reboot of Broly's introduction, and they were retconning the original movies.

While, normally, I'd be fine with that (I'm half curious how they're going to do it) the fact that I put Broly as part of THIS just makes me worry I'll get flak for portraying Broly as being on this Gohan's level (even if he's supposed to be stronger than Buu Saga Goku or Vegeta given his training regimen), when Broly is shown duking it out with post-T.O.P. Goku, Vegeta and Frieza.

Hopefully everyone who read this enjoyed it. If anyone has criticisms to give, I'd be happy to hear it, because I don't write fights for DBZ often (this is probably the first I've done, and put in my full effort, in actual years), and I want to give good quality fights for the battles further down the line in this story.


	8. Confessions, Convictions

#18 watched Gohan's expression become unreadable for a few moments, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Was there something else you wanted to tell me?" She asked him.

He visibly struggled with himself, but finally took a deep breath.

"There was."

"Alright." #18, wondering what it could be, crossed her arms. "What is it?"

"You remember Trunks, right? The one that fought with a sword?"

#18 had to think about it for a few moments, but nodded, faintly remembering the time-traveling Saiyan.

"The one from the future, right?" She asked for clarification, pulling a loose strand of hair behind her ear as he nodded stiffly. "What about him?"

"That Trunks, he had come three years before you fought him, to warn us about Dr. Gero making the androids, about him making... YOU." Gohan explained, careful with his words. "When that happened, Bulma said it would be easier for everyone, if we just used the dragon balls to stop him from making them, or at least to let us know where to find him to stop him. But... We decided we didn't want to do that."

#18's eyebrows furrowed in surprise and confusion.

"What?" She asked.

"We knew exactly what would happen, how he would make you and #17 appear, and attack people."

"And ALL of you just did... NOTHING?" She exclaimed, eyes wide.

Her bafflement and shock at this knowledge was palpable, but seconds later, her body's programming kicked in, and her emotions were neutralized to the desired point.

The guilt in Gohan's expression remained clear, regardless, as he saw her expression mete out to become blank.

He sighed.

"At the time, my father and Vegeta both decided they wanted to fight you two. Vegeta even threatened to kill anyone who tried to get in the way of it, and Dad... He just wanted to fight you. After that, we trained for years so we could be strong enough to stop you, when you appeared."

#18 looked down, frustration at her programming growing as she held her head.

With the initial shock forcibly driven away, what began welling up inside her became outrage and anger.

"Everyone wanted to fight someone stronger, for their own reasons. So we decided to let it happen. We all trained as hard as we could from then on, but it wasn't enough when the time came. We could've prevented ALL of this, prevented you from being changed. And... I'm sorry that that's how it ended up being, #18. If I had known what was going to happen, how much this entire situation would escalate... I don't know what I would've done."

He looked down, thinking on how, when given to a group vote between all of them, the day Trunks had warned them, everyone collectively decided to let the androids be made, as opposed to preventing it outright.

Even Krillin had been on board with it, convincing Bulma that, given Vegeta's loyalties being nonexistent, it would be better to let the androids come to exist than have him around as a loose cannon.

"I still wish I had done SOMETHING to prevent all of this from happening. I'm sorry that I didn't do more, #18."

#18 looked to him, hands lowering to her lap, clenching them into fists.

"Gohan. You were SEVEN, when this happened." She told him firmly. "SEVEN. With a group of what I'm guessing is five grown men and Piccolo all voting to have us be made. The only reason this happened to me, ANY of the things happening now are happening, is on them."

"It's not just that." Gohan said, breathing a sigh. "Do you remember the people I mentored before? Those kids are involved in it too. They were targeted and turned into androids, just like you were. It's because I trained them in the first place - he targeted them because they were stronger than the average person, but not as strong as most of the others."

She gazed at him for a moment, before rubbing her forehead.

"Why did Gero have to start all this?" She muttered to herself, before looking to Gohan. "I'm glad you finally told me about this. But why wait until now?"

"I saw how much being an android hurt you. I /wanted/ to tell you the truth, but... I didn't know how to go about it. Knowing I could've prevented you from being turned into what you are now, I regret not doing more."

#18 looked to her hand, eyes narrowing as she concentrated energy into her palm, before letting it dissipate.

"And the fact that the dragon balls can't fix it just makes it worse." She sighed. "They could've used them to prevent us from being changed like this to begin with."

She looked to Gohan again.

"All the things you've been going through? It's not something anyone your age should care about." #18 told him. "Most people would be worried about the future, making a living for themselves. You had to grow up a lot faster than you should've. But even if that's the case, it's the kind of world we live in. The only bright side is that you're not alone in this."

"I know I'm not."

"Good. Then you'd understand when I say I'm getting involved in this as well. You've already fought today." #18 said, gaze trailing over the bruises covering his body, and his broken nose. "For now, you can leave it to us."

"But... Should I really...?"

"Rest for now." #18 told him. "All of us, you included, have been living with shunting responsibility on you. But we have powers too. It's about time we used them. You try to recover for now. I need some time to myself anyways, to clear my head."

Gohan gave a surprised look, but understood nonetheless.

"I'll head up to the Lookout for now, see if there's anything that I can do about this." #18 rose to her feet. "I need to get ready first though."

Gohan looked as she stepped to his side, grasping his shoulder, looking at her.

"I'm not angry at you for this." She shook her head. "I'm angry at so many people being hurt and killed over an old man's grudge, and even more so at the others for letting it happen. So I'm going to take a page from your book: I'm going to put that anger to good use."

"Okay. Just... Don't let the anger blind you." Gohan replied.

She managed a smile.

"Of course I won't." She rubbed his shoulder, then walked off to their room.

* * *

There was a general sense of hardened purpose in #18's mind as she went about getting into proper clothing for a fight.

A roll of binding cloth in hand, she wrapped it around her bust to flatten it, though the residual pains inside them remained, her soon going about putting on a track suit, zipping it up and breathing a sigh.

"Now to deal with this nonsense." #18 turned, walking out of the room, looking to Gohan as she walked by. "I'll see you later on. I'll be going to the Lookout for now."

"If you're sure." Gohan nodded.

She stepped closer, giving him a brief hug, then pulling away, the android soon stepping outside and flying off into the night sky.

* * *

Videl sat on a bench inside the department as she looked out the window, at all of the news feeds covering the aftermath of the attack on the police department.

There was the cacophonous cluster of ambulance and fire truck sirens out there, the rapidly flashing lights making it all a cluster of bright red.

The injured, but still breathing, policemen were taken off to go to the hospital at that moment, while a forensics group went about surveying the damage.

It was something she was all too used to, though the fact that there wasn't anyone questioning her on what happened was something that made her feel off, as she looked at the people around her.

It was only when she suddenly felt an energy appear, seemingly out of thin air, that she found herself looking up in surprise towards the cells.

She was unsure if it was a gut feeling or something else that warned her, but she waved for the EMTs' attention.

"There might be another one in the back." Videl warned. "I need all of you to hurry, if you can."

As she said this, she suddenly felt the energy starting to rise, and she looked in the energy's direction, hesitating, before running towards the back, concentrating her ki into her body as she neared the cells.

She stopped immediately upon finding the sight that would greet her.

"W-What?!" She asked, baffled.

A humanoid blue bug with black armor platings around its chest, upper stomach and shins stood before her, the creature standing over the corpses of the gang members she'd spent so long fighting.

"Energy readings were unsatisfactory for evolution." He said, glancing towards Videl.

The spitting image of Cell, the one key difference, beyond the color scheme, was the large tail protruding out of its waist, sucking up the organs of the ki-using youths and draining them to a husk.

It stared at her blankly for but a moment, before its purple eyes narrowed.

"Specimen: Videl Satan. Power Level is satisfactory. Physical endurance is sufficient."

"Who are you?" She asked, taking up a fighting position, only for the creature to be before her in the time it took for her to blink.

"New Objective created." It said, before grasping her roughly by the shoulders, disappearing from the room, leaving only the drained corpses it left in its wake.

* * *

 **A/N: Finally updated this after so many months... I hate writer's block.**

 **Hopefully I still have all of your interest in this.**

 **I'll try abstaining from long paused in updating this thing, though I have college, so that's a thing.**

 **Now that the Broly movie's finally out, I'll just explain Broly's appearance this way: It's established in the game Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 that the movies of the Z era generally took place in alternate timelines than the main ones.**

 **While things like GT get to still be canon, from that explanation, by conveniently undercutting any arguments over whether GT can count as canon or not, this being an AU, I take it to be that this is an alternate timeline as well, wherein Z Broly was the one that existed in this universe as opposed to Super Broly.**

 **Super Broly did not deserve the fate this story's Broly got.**

 **It also conveniently gives me breathing room to not have to change the entire backstory of this current arc to fit canon better.**


End file.
